TASS says Trump envoys to visit Russia and Ukraine at weekend, Kremlin declines comment

MOSCOW/KYIV, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Russian state ‌news agency TASS ​said the ​two U.S. envoys seeking to end the war between Russia and Ukraine would visit both countries on Saturday and Sunday, but the Kremlin declined to ‌comment.

TASS did not identify its source.

President Donald Trump's envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared ⁠Kushner, last visited Moscow in January, when they held four hours of late-night talks with President Vladimir Putin ‌in the Kremlin.

"I wouldn't make ‌any announcements right now, but we will inform you when these contacts take place," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the TASS report.

Witkoff and Kushner have ​yet to visit Ukraine, but President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that Trump's representatives were expected in Moscow and Kyiv in the coming days.

A source familiar with the matter ⁠told Reuters that discussions on the Ukraine part of the trip were still taking place, and the teams had spoken ​about Sunday as a possible date.

"The Russians don't want them to visit Kyiv and are trying to make them change the plan," the source ​added.

A vast gulf remains between Russia and Ukraine ‌on how to end the 4-1/2-year-old war, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two.

Peskov said the position that Putin set out in a ⁠speech two years ago - that Ukraine should cede the entire territory of four regions claimed by Russia and abandon its plan to join NATO - was "unshakeable".

Ukraine refuses to surrender land that it has successfully defended ⁠at huge cost, and rejects such terms as tantamount to surrender.

Putin said on Thursday there was a ​chance of reaching an agreement to end the war in Ukraine. But he added that Kyiv's warning to foreign airlines this week to avoid Russian airspace amounted to a threat that would make talks more ‌difficult.

The last U.S.-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in February, shortly before the United States and Israel launched a war against ‌Iran.

Peskov said the possibility of eventually reaching a peace settlement could not be ruled out, but ⁠the necessary basis for this did ‌not exist right now.

"The work ​continues, and the contacts continue," he said.

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov in Moscow in Moscow and Dan Flynn in London; writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by ‌Kevin Liffey)

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