President Donald Trump said Tuesday his plan to end the war in Ukraine "is making progress” and he’s sending envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials.

He suggested he could eventually meet with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been made in negotiations.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening aboard Air Force One, Trump said resolving the war was difficult and that “there's a lot of hatred”.

"I thought this would be one of the easier ones because of my relationship with President Putin, but this is probably one of the more difficult ones," Trump told reporters.

He said he believed Witkoff would be meeting with Putin next week in Moscow, with his son-in-law Jared Kushner potentially joining the meeting.

Trump’s plan for ending the nearly four-year war emerged last week.

It heavily favored Russia, prompting Zelenskyy to quickly engage with U.S. negotiators.

European leaders, fearing for their own future facing Russian aggression but apparently sidelined by Trump in drawing up the proposal, scrambled to steer the negotiations toward accommodating their concerns.

At the center of Trump’s plan is the call on Ukraine to concede the entirety of its eastern Donbas region, even though a vast swath of that land remains in Ukrainian control.