RUSSIA SAYS US ENVOY WITKOFF SET TO VISIT MOSCOW NEXT WEEK

A senior Kremlin official confirmed Wednesday that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to visit Moscow next week as efforts pick up speed to find a consensus on ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

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But Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign affairs adviser, insisted that Kremlin officials haven't officially received the initial U.S. peace proposal, although they have acknowledged that they have seen a copy obtained through back channels. Representatives of the United States, Russia and Ukraine held talks earlier this week in the United Arab Emirates.

“Contact is ongoing, including via telephone, but no one has yet sat down at a roundtable and discussed this point by point. That hasn't happened,” Ushakov told Russian state media.

Ukrainian officials didn’t confirm whether U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who in recent weeks has played a high-profile role in the peace efforts, would be in Kyiv in the coming days, as U.S. President Donald Trump indicated Tuesday.

Trump's plan for ending the war became public last week, setting off diplomatic maneuvering. The initial version appeared heavily slanted toward Russian demands for halting Moscow's invasion of its neighbor.