U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said he had “compelling” talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during his most recent trip to Russia, as Ukraine war ceasefire negotiations drag on with little visible progress.
Why It Matters
Trump has steered the White House toward a rapprochement with the Kremlin, monitored with apprehension by most of the U.S.’ allies and many domestic lawmakers.
The Kremlin rejected a U.S. proposal—to which Ukraine agreed last month—for a full 30-day ceasefire, consenting only to a partial truce covering the Black Sea when a raft of sanctions are lifted. Both sides have accused one another of violating a U.S.-brokered ban on strikes on energy infrastructure.
The White House has conceded Trump, who pledged to end the grinding war in eastern Europe in just 24 hours, had been “continually frustrated with both sides of this conflict.”
“Russia has to get moving,” Trump said in a statement posted to his Truth Social site on Friday.
But Trump has adopted a softer tone toward what he termed Moscow “dragging their feet,” while pushing Kyiv toward the negotiating table through a brief cut to military aid and U.S.-derived intelligence last month.
Trump on Monday accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of starting the war more than three years ago, telling reporters: “You don’t start a war with someone 20 times your size and then hope people give you some missiles.”
Despite Trump’s comments it was Russia that launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. Speaking to CBS in an interview broadcast on Sunday, Zelensky said Trump should visit Ukraine to “understand what’s going on here” before negotiating deals with Russia.
What To Know
Witkoff, who has emerged as the Trump administration’s main point of contact for Russian officials, told Fox News on Monday evening he had “compelling” discussions with the Russian leader and his senior aides, including the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev. Dmitriev had traveled to Washington for talks earlier this month.
“It was a compelling meeting,” Witkoff said.
Trump’s envoy visited the Russian city of St. Petersburg on Friday in a bid to move on sluggish negotiations on a ceasefire deal, marking his third visit to Russia during this administration.
Toward the end of an almost five-hour-long meeting, Russia presented Putin’s view for a “permanent” peace beyond an immediate ceasefire deal, Witkoff said. He did not elaborate further.
Russia has laid out extensive conditions for its consent to a ceasefire in Ukraine, many of which have been flatly ruled out by Kyiv, including the dismantling of Ukraine’s military and recognition of Russia’s grip on seized Ukrainian territory.
Moscow currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it felt “very, very positively the constructive and meaningful contacts that took place” between Witkoff and senior Russian officials.
“This peace deal is about these so-called five territories, but there’s so much more to it,” Witkoff said.
Witkoff appears to be referencing Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized from Kyiv in 2014, and four Russian-annexed regions of mainland Ukraine. The Kremlin said in fall 2022 that it was annexing the Donetsk and Luhansk regions collectively known as the Donbas, as well as the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine.
This was not internationally recognized, and Russia does not fully control these regions, also known as oblasts. Trump officials have increasingly signaled a peace agreement could involve continued Russian control of these chunks of Ukraine.
“Ukraine is prepared to do difficult things, like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things,” U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said en route to ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia last month.
Witkoff said there is a “lot of detail” to work through in negotiations over a “complicated situation,” nodding to “security protocols.” This is likely a reference to Ukraine’s demands for security guarantees, designed to ensure Russia does not launch fresh attacks after regrouping during a ceasefire.
Trump has indicated he believes it is Europe’s place to provide such guarantees, and has resisted European officials attempting to secure a U.S. “backstop” for a U.K. and French-led “coalition of the willing.” Tens of countries have put themselves forward to support a ceasefire agreement, although public and private debates on how a multinational force would work have plagued the London and Paris-driven initiative.
Witkoff suggested Russia’s demand that Ukraine be forbidden from joining NATO still features heavily in discussions, then he quickly referred to the alliance’s Article 5 without offering further details.
Article 5 is the bedrock of NATO that commits other NATO states to help out any member that comes under armed attack, with the response they deem appropriate.
Ukraine sees NATO membership as a solid security guarantee, while alliance officials wary of broadening the war have typically expressed support for Kyiv’s bid, but only once the war has ended.
Witkoff also said there was the “possibility to reshape the Russian-United States relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities.”
The Kremlin said in its own remarks after Witkoff’s third visit that “everything is moving ahead very well.”
“Resurrecting relations basically from scratch is a very complicated thing to do,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told state media.
Trump’s envoy has drawn sharp criticism for his apparent soft touch on the Kremlin while pushing through ceasefire talks.
John Bolton, national security adviser to Trump during his first administration before falling out of favor with the president, told Sky News earlier this month that Witkoff was “more of a propaganda vehicle for Putin than anything else.”
Witkoff, during an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last month, said he “liked” Putin while stumbling over the specifics of the most contentious issues of the Ukraine War, including disputed territory.
“I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy,” he added.
What People Are Saying
Witkoff said on Monday: “I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large.”
What Happens Next
It remains to be seen how quickly the U.S. negotiating teams will be able to secure any further progress on a ceasefire deal.
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