US President Donald Trump has confirmed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Moscow and Kyiv this weekend carrying a new proposal aimed at ending the war. Witkoff has served as Trump's special envoy to the Middle East and has been involved in earlier rounds of Russia-Ukraine diplomacy, while Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and former senior White House adviser, has focused on Middle East policy. "We will have to see where that leads," Trump said of the upcoming diplomatic mission. The trip follows previous US-brokered efforts to pause the fighting, including discussions over prisoner exchanges and strikes on energy infrastructure earlier in the conflict.

Speaking on Iran, Trump also stated that the United States may hit Pickaxe Mountain "very soon." Pickaxe Mountain is a heavily fortified underground nuclear facility being built by Iran inside the Zagros Mountains, roughly 225 km south of Tehran. The site drew international attention after Israel and the United States struck other Iranian nuclear sites, including the Fordow enrichment plant built deep inside a mountain, in earlier confrontations over Iran's nuclear program. Iran has described the site as a replacement centrifuge assembly plant, but international intelligence services and nuclear watchdogs, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, suspect it may house secret uranium enrichment or storage; the IAEA has said it has not been granted access to verify the site's purpose.

Trump made several further claims regarding the geopolitical situation:

• Putin is not looking to attack NATO.
• There are no mines in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of global oil trade normally passes.
• There has been no shooting for days.
• "We have essentially taken over Iran."
• The Iran issue is "small potatoes."

There had also been talk that the reported strikes in Jordan did not actually happen, and Trump appeared to confirm that account in his remarks.

How the weekend mission is received in Moscow and Kyiv, and whether the IAEA gains access to Pickaxe Mountain, are likely to shape the next steps in both conflicts.

Source: investingLive