Witkoff defended Trump's decision to drop pressure on Russia to agree to an immediate ceasefire, saying the president has refocused on a peace agreement because so much progress has been made.

"We covered almost all the other issues needed for a peace agreement," Witkoff said, without going into further detail.

"We started to see some moderation in how they were thinking about how to get a final peace agreement," he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there would be"additional consequences" if they failed to reach a ceasefire. However, Rubio said no ceasefire agreement would be reached if Ukraine did not participate in the talks.

"Now, at the end of the day, if there's no peace deal, if there's no end to this war, the president has made it clear that there will be consequences," Rubio said on ABC's "This Week." "But we're trying to avoid that. And the way we're trying to avoid those consequences is with even better consequences, which is peace, an end to hostilities."

He also said that achieving peace would not be easy and that it would require a lot of work.