Steve Witkoff met the Russian president last week as part of a broader effort to end the hostilities

Russian President Vladimir Putin is pursuing a permanent peace and a legally binding settlement to the Ukraine conflict, US special envoy Steve Witkoff has told Fox News.

Witkoff, tasked by US President Donald Trump to lead negotiations with Moscow, met with Putin and two of his senior advisers on Friday.

The US envoy shared details of the talks in an interview on Monday, describing the nearly five-hour meeting with Putin as "compelling" and saying it brought the Ukraine peace process to "the verge" of a breakthrough.

According to Witkoff, Putin is pursuing a lasting solution. "So beyond just a ceasefire, we got an answer to that," the envoy said, adding it "took a while for us to get to this place."

A key part of any deal, Witkoff said, would be the recognition that Crimea, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, and Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions are part of Russia. However, he emphasized that the proposed agreement goes beyond territorial issues.

"There're security protocols, NATO Article 5 [on collective security] ... a lot of detail attached to it. It's a complicated situation," he said.

Still, Witkoff said he believed the two sides "might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large."

Friday's meeting was Witkoff's third with the Russian president since February. Trump has repeatedly said he aims to end the hostilities in Ukraine as quickly as possible.

Russia has maintained it is open to peace talks, provided its key security demands are addressed. Moscow opposes any NATO presence on Ukrainian soil and has demanded that Kiev demilitarize, denazify, adhere to a position of neutrality, and recognize the territorial "realities on the ground."

The Russian government has insisted it will not accept a freeze of the conflict, which it maintains will only lead to renewed hostilities later on. Moscow has cited Ukraine's violations of a US-proposed moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure as proof of Kiev's untrustworthiness.

Commenting on Putin's meeting with Witkoff, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday there were "no clear outlines of any agreement yet," but that there was the political will to move forward. Moscow, he added, values the "constructive and substantive" contact with the US side.

(RT.com)