US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that talks between US Presidential Representative Steve Witkoff and the Russian side regarding a possible ceasefire in Ukraine give reason for “cautious optimism”, but admitted that the road to peace will still be long.
“Suffice it to say that I think there are grounds for cautious optimism. But we continue to recognise that the situation is difficult. It’s not going to be easy. But we definitely feel that we are at least a few steps closer to ending this war and bringing peace, but it’s a long road with many steps,” Rubio told reporters on 14 March after meeting with his counterparts from the Group of Seven (G7) countries in Canada.
He said Trump administration officials plan to spend the weekend summarising the results of Witkoff’s meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and deciding on next steps.
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff took part in a meeting of Ukrainian and US delegations in Saudi Arabia on 11 March and flew to Moscow on 13 March.
On 14 March, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “additional information was provided to the Russian side” at the meeting and that Vladimir Putin passed information and “additional signals” to Trump through Witkoff.
Putin met with Alexander Lukashenko in the Kremlin on 13 March, and in a press conference afterwards said Russia agreed with the US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, but “there are nuances”, and asked several questions, such as about the presence of the AFU in Russia’s Kursk region. Trump called Putin’s statement “encouraging but incomplete” and Vladimir Zelensky called it “another Russian manipulation”.