Trump claims Russia-Ukraine peace deal is ‘very close’ after Putin-Witkoff meeting; Kremlin responds | 10 updates

Donald Trump on Friday said Russia and Ukraine were "very close to a deal," despite apparent differences in their positions. This comes hours after US envoy had a three-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

Here are the top updates of the hour:

• Soon after Putin-Witkoff meeting concluded, Trump posted on social media it was a good day of talks and called for a high-level meeting between Kyiv and Moscow to close a deal.
• “They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off,’” Trump wrote. “Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!”

• Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, who took part in Friday's meeting and brief reporters on the details, earlier described it as constructive and very useful.

• "This conversation allowed Russia and the United States to further bring their positions closer together, not only on Ukraine but also on a number of other international issues," he told reporters.
• "As for the Ukrainian crisis itself, the discussion focused in particular on the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between representatives of the Russian Federation and Ukraine."
• Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which started with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
• There was no immediate comment from Witkoff.

• Even though Trump unusually criticized Putin this week, he has mostly been pushing Zelenskyy to make a deal that would mean giving up some of Ukraine’s land to Russia. Earlier on Friday, Time magazine published a new Trump interview where he said: "Crimea will stay with Russia. And Zelenskiy understands that, and everybody understands that it's been with them for a long time."
• Crimea is a strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine. It was seized by Russia in 2014, while President Barack Obama was in office, years before Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022.
• When asked by reporters, Zelenskyy said he didn't want to comment on Trump's statement but repeated, as he has many times during the war, that recognizing occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian is a red line for his country.
  
  (Wtih inputs from Reuters, AFP)