White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday evening that US President Donald Trump’s administration is “very optimistic” that a deal will be reached to end Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine.
According to AFP, Leavitt also told journalists that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was “on his way to Russia.”
Earlier on Monday, Witkoff was said to be in Miami, Florida, holding talks with Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov. On Dec. 2, Witkoff is expected in Moscow, to present a revised US-drafted “peace” plan to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A Ukrainian delegation visited Miami over the weekend for a five-hour discussion with the US administration ahead of the planned Witkoff-Putin meeting – talks which Leavitt described as “very good.”
In contrast, a veteran US diplomat interviewed by Kyiv Post warned that the Trump administration must stop “negotiating with themselves” if they wish to deliver results.
During Monday’s press conference, Leavitt also addressed the corruption scandal in Ukraine’s energy sector which led President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top aide, Andriy Yermak, to resign on Friday.
“Well, look, I think the president has made it quite clear – as he said last night, corruption is never helpful,” she told a journalist who raised a question about Yermak’s resignation.
Leavitt said that the US is selling weapons to NATO that are then sent on to Ukraine, which is “a very different thing than the American people writing blank cheques to a war effort far away.”
“It does not degrade the administration’s determination to see this war come to an end, but I think it exemplifies the president’s desire to always put the American people and the American taxpayer first,” she added.
Trump often criticizes his predecessor Joe Biden’s perceived generosity towards Ukraine. However, the amount of US military aid actually received by Ukraine was three times lower than the official number, economists from a Ukrainian think tank found earlier this year.