(MENAFN- UkrinForm) U.S. President's Special Representative for the Middle East Steve Witkoff announced real progress on the ceasefire in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

He said this in a comment to CNN on Sunday, Ukrinform reports.

"The President (Trump - ed.) uses the time frame 'weeks', and I don't disagree with him. I am really hopeful that we're going to have some real progress here (on the ceasefire issue - ed.)," Witkoff said.

He added that, in his opinion, great progress has been made on the issue since Donald Trump's inauguration.

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"Nobody expected progress this fast. This is a highly, very complicated situation, and yet, we're bridging the gap between two sides," Witkoff said.

Among other things, he also not rule out that Trump will have a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin next week.

"Lots of things remain to be discussed but I think the two presidents are going to have a really good and positive discussion this week," he concluded.

As Ukrinform reported, on Tuesday, March 11, a meeting of the US and Ukrainian delegations took place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The parties issued a joint statement following the meeting of the delegations.

Ukraine expressed its readiness to accept the US proposal to immediately introduce a temporary, 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual consent of the parties, subject to its acceptance and simultaneous implementation by the Russian Federation.

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On March 13, U.S. Special Representative Steve Witkoff visited Moscow, where he met with Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said that Putin had given Trump“additional information and signals” via Witkoff.

On Saturday, March 15, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Ukrainian side was not aware for sure what had been discussed in Moscow during the talks involving U.S. Special Representative Steve Witkoff.

Photo: Bloomberg

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