Ukraine: US pushes for ceasefire, Steve Witkoff in Russia for the third time

As Ukraine's Western backers dumped more support and weapons for it in the fight against Russia

the Kremlin said that Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy, was currently on his third visit to Moscow. Ongoing ceasefire efforts by Washington

Now, Russian forces hold the advantage in Ukraine. The war now in its fourth year. Ukraine, though, has endorsed a U.S. ceasefire proposal, but Russia has effectively blocked it

by imposing far-reaching conditions. Joining me on the set is our foreign affairs editor

Dresher Ketavin Gurdjistani. Hello to you, Ketavin. Steve Witkoff's third visit to Moscow

I'm guessing the third time's not a charm. But what can we expect from his visit

Well, look, obviously, this is going to be mostly about the discussion over a possible ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine

But what's important is sort of the context in which this meeting is happening

because it's happening just after the first signs of sort of frustration from Donald Trump regarding Vladimir Putin

Remember that just recently he talked about how angry he was at the Russian president

even saying that Vladimir Putin had, quote, pissed him off, referring to some of the comments that the Russian president had made about Vladimir Zelensky

especially the talk about a new leadership. at the time, Donald Trump had even threatened more sanctions on Russia if Russia didn't come

to the negotiating table in good faith. And, uh, the goal for the United States

apparently according to a U S media reports is to have a deal by the end of the month because this would coincide with Donald Trump 100 days in office When you look at what Marco Rubio the Secretary of State said just last week in Brussels

he also indicated a little bit of frustration, saying we will soon know soon enough

in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not

So that will be the main goal of Steve Witkoff, who has indicated that he's way more open and favorable to Vladimir Putin, saying he's a nice guy and he likes him

But there will be two other aspects probably that will be discussed in that meeting

One is the sort of normalization of the relationship between the U.S. and Russia, whether it's the economic ties or, of course, those diplomatic ties

There was a meeting in Istanbul just yesterday between the two teams to focus on normalizing those diplomatic ties

And there's the question of the prisoner exchanges. Yesterday, there was a prisoner exchange

And Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, saying that the exchange helps to cement trust

And they're working, both sides saying that they're working towards more possible prisoner exchanges in the future

So this is where we are right now. But we'll, of course, know more once Steve Witkoff meets with the Russian president

And we'll see what comes out of that meeting and what he will bring back to his boss, Donald Trump

All right, good event. Thank you very much. Good event. Gorgeous, Donnie