U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that Russia-Ukraine land swaps are the “fundamental issue” that will be discussed at the White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Witkoff said land swaps will be the key discussion point on Monday when Zelensky and European leaders join President Trump for their first in-person meeting after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
Witkoff, who was with Trump during the Putin meeting, said “robust security guarantees” were reached during the historic discussion but that the U.S. was serving as a “mediator” for Ukraine and could not make progress on issues like land swaps without first speaking to Ukrainians.
“The fundamental issue, which is some sort of land swap, which is obviously ultimately in the control of the Ukrainians, that could not have been discussed at this meeting. We intend to discuss it on Monday,” Witkoff said.
“Hopefully we have some clarity on it, and hopefully that ends up in a peace deal very, very soon,” he continued.
Witkoff sidestepped a direct question about the veracity of reporting suggesting Putin agreed to end the war if Ukraine ceded the entire Donbas region to Russia, including territory not currently held by Russia.
Witkoff said there are issues in all five major regions, adding he doesn’t “have the time now to go through” all of them, but that the U.S. sees those five regions as “the crux of the deal.”
“The Russians made some concessions at the table with regard to all five of those regions. There is an important discussion to be had with regard to Donetsk and what would happen there,” Witkoff said. “And that discussion is going to specifically be detailed on Monday, when President Zelensky arrives with his delegation and some of the other European leaders. And hopefully we can cut through and make some decisions right then and there on that.”
