US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to travel to Moscow Monday for talks

Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, will travel to Moscow on Monday, a U.S. official tells Fox News.

The trip comes as peace talks between Ukraine and Russia show signs of progress, with the White House pushing a peace plan to end the nearly four-year-long war.

On Sunday, Witkoff — a central figure in negotiating the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas — joined Secretary of State Marco Rubio and senior advisor Jared Kushner in Florida to meet with Ukrainian negotiators. 

Rubio described the meeting as “very productive.” In a statement, Rubio said that the end goal is “not just the end of the war.”

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“Obviously, that’s essential and fundamental. We want to see the end of the killing and the death and the suffering, and I’m sure the Ukrainian side, I know they do as well,” Rubio said. 

“They want peace. But it’s also about securing an end to the war that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent and with an opportunity at real prosperity.”

Last week, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow could reject the White House’s peace deal framework if it does not uphold the “spirit and letter” of what President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to at the Alaska summit in August.

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He warned that if the terms of the “key understandings” are “extinguished” then the situation would become “fundamentally different.”

Despite Lavrov’s comments, Putin showed interest in Trump’s plans to end the war on Thursday, calling the drafted plans a starting point.

“We need to sit down and discuss this seriously,” Putin told reporters, according to The Associated Press.

Trump’s plan as “a set of issues put forward for discussion” rather than a draft agreement.

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“Every word matters,” Putin added.

Fox News Digital’s Sarah Tobianski, Kyle Schmidbauer and Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.