Trump envoy Witkoff plans Moscow visit this week to meet Putin

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, plans a visit to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, two people briefed on the plans said on Monday.

Witkoff, who is officially Trump's Middle East envoy, has played a growing role in efforts to bring about an end to the three-year-old Ukraine war.

The people, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed a Bloomberg News report that Witkoff would be going to Moscow for talks with Putin.

One of the sources said Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow this week.

Trump has expressed a desire to meet Putin and, since taking office in January, has pursued an effort to reverse the icy relations with Russia of the previous Biden administration.

Witkoff met Putin in Moscow last month and brought back American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, who had been sentenced to 14 years in a Russian prison after being detained for holding medically prescribed marijuana.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading a delegation to Saudi Arabia for talks on Tuesday with Ukrainian officials about the war. U.S. officials planned to use the meeting in part to determine whether Ukraine is willing to make material concessions to Russia to end the war, two U.S. officials said.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jasper Ward; Editing by Costas Pitas, Howard Goller and Michael Perry)

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