US envoy Witkoff due to meet Putin in Russia over Ukraine war

The Kremlin says Witkoff ‘will bring something from his president to Putin’ to push for a Ukrainian peace settlement.

United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has arrived in Russia and is scheduled to meet President Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine, according to the Kremlin spokesperson.

The Kremlin’s Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Friday that Witkoff and Putin were in Saint Petersburg.

“The painstaking work continues. Naturally, Witkoff, as a special representative of President Trump, will bring something from his president to Putin. Putin will listen to it. The conversation on various aspects of the Ukrainian settlement will continue,” he was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency.

Earlier on Friday, Russian state media published footage of Witkoff and Russia’s economic negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, leaving a hotel in St Petersburg.

Ceasefire talks stall

Talks over securing a ceasefire deal to end the Ukraine war have stalled amid negotiations on the conditions to end the war.

At the end of March, Trump said he was “very angry” and “p****d off” after Putin criticised the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leadership.

Trump told NBC News: “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault – which it might not be – but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia.”

Last month, Putin rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for a complete and unconditional ceasefire.

While Russia and Ukraine agreed to halt attacks on energy infrastructure in March, both sides have accused each other of continuing attacks.

Mending ties

Witkoff has quickly become a key figure in discussions between Washington and Moscow as the two sides eased the frosty tensions during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

After his last meeting with Putin, Witkoff said the Russian leader was a “great leader” and “not a bad guy”.

More recently, on Thursday, US and Russian officials held talks in Turkiye, which they both said had made progress towards normalising the work of their diplomatic missions.

On the same day, Russia freed Russian American Ksenia Karelina from prison in exchange for the suspected tech smuggler Arthur Petrov.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that prisoner exchanges helped build “trust, which is much needed” between the two sides after ties deteriorated under Biden.