US hopes Ukraine conflict will be resolved by year end

The US administration hopes to resolve the conflicts in Ukraine, between Israel and Iran, and in the Gaza Strip by the end of the year, Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff said on August 27. Meetings dedicated to these issues are being held this week, among other activities, TASS news agency reported.

"Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Israel, Hamas — we've been meeting all week on all three of these conflicts. And we hope to resolve them by the end of the year," he said at a cabinet meeting at the White House.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff also noted that US officials are discussing several countries joining the Abraham Accords, which include normalizing relations with Israel.

Regarding the Ukrainian conflict, during a regular Cabinet meeting at the White House, US President Donald Trump did not consider Russia's position on the illegitimacy of leader Volodymyr Zelensky to be an important issue for the final settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. This is how the White House boss commented on Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's statement on the legitimacy of the Ukrainian leader according to the constitution.

On August 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump met at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Alaska. The meeting lasted about three hours and was in a reduced "3:3" format.

The meeting was also attended by Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov from Russia, and Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff from the US. In a statement to the press after the talks, President Putin said the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict was the main topic of the summit.