WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that there would be an expectation that U.S. firms may do business in Russia in the event of a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine war.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Trump has been pushing for a deal to end the war in Ukraine and held separate calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy this month.

KEY QUOTES

"Obviously there would be an expectation that if we get to a peace deal, that you would be able to have American companies come back and do business there. And I think that everybody would believe that that would be a positive, good thing to happen," Witkoff told the CBS News program "Face The Nation."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg Television on Thursday that Russia could win some relief from U.S. sanctions based on its willingness to negotiate an end to its war in Ukraine. Asked whether the United States is prepared to increase sanctions on Russia or reduce them depending on how talks to end the Ukraine war go, Bessent had said: "That'd be a very good characterization."

CONTEXT

Trump's top officials recently met their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia in talks that did not include Ukraine. Trump also called Zelenskiy a dictator on Wednesday.

Trump has urged the presidents of Russia and Ukraine to work together on ending the war, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Russia had annexed Crimea in 2014.

Trump faced criticism domestically and internationally in the past week after he said Ukraine "should have never started" the war before reversing course and saying Russia did in fact invade Ukraine.

Witkoff and Bessent separately said on Sunday they expect that an agreement would be signed this week on U.S. access to Ukraine's critical mineral deposits.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)