Trump envoy Witkoff to make push on Ukraine peace talks in meeting with Putin

The visit came after Trump expressed frustration with Moscow for delaying peace talks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin White House special envoy Steve Witkoff greet each other prior to their talks in St. Petersburg, Picture: Gavriil Grigorov,/Sputnik

The Trump administration pushed to advance Ukraine peace talks that have stalled in recent weeks, with special envoy Steve Witkoff meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Witkoff, who has previously traveled to Russia twice this year to meet Putin, arrived in St. Petersburg on Friday. He met with a Russian negotiator ahead of his meeting with the Kremlin leader.

President Trump has in recent weeks shown frustration with Moscow for delaying peace talks. Ukraine has signaled its willingness to agree to a 30-day cease-fire if Russia reciprocates, as discussed in recent talks with US officials. Russia, though, has rebuffed the cease-fire call and slow-walked talks, playing for time to capitalize on its battlefield advances and secure maximum concessions in negotiations.

The Kremlin has instead been touting Washington’s apparent interest in normalizing relations and proposing economic deals between the two countries while putting up conditions for any truce with Kyiv, including the lifting of some economic sanctions.

In a social-media post on Friday, Trump said that “Russia has to get moving.”

Too many people are dying, he wrote, “in a terrible and senseless war.”

Witkoff was expected to travel to the Middle East for negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program after his visit to Russia.

On Friday, Witkoff, who has become a key intermediary in Trump’s attempts to find a settlement of the war, met with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, Russian state news agency TASS reported. Dmitriev, who has emerged as an informal Russian go-between with the US, was in Washington last week.

Steve Witkoff arrives for the talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. Picture: IIS "Metal Supply and Sales" via AP

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the time Dmitriev was given a message to take back to Putin that the US “needs to know whether you’re serious about peace.”

“We will know from their answers very soon whether they are serious about proceeding with real peace or whether it’s a delay tactic,” Rubio said.

The Kremlin has used Dmitriev, who has a background in investment banking, as a channel to promote economic deals with the US Since talks began in February, he has floated proposals for the US and Russia to cooperate in everything from oil-and-gas projects to critical minerals and missions to Mars.

While the Trump administration and Kremlin have touted progress in talks, officials and analysts say they see little indication that Moscow is prepared to wind down the fighting. Russia has pushed back the Ukrainian forces who last summer launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, and fighting continues in several areas across the front line.

Witkoff’s visit to Russia comes a day after the US and Russia carried out a prisoner swap arranged by their intelligence agencies.

Russia released Ksenia Karelina, a US-Russian dual national who was sentenced last year to 12 years in a penal colony.

US-Russian ballerina Ksenia Karelina and her boyfriend embrace as she arrives in Maryland, following her release from Russia Picture: AFP

In exchange, the US freed Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen, who was arrested in 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the US for allegedly exporting sensitive microelectronics.

Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, told state media Friday that talks on more prisoner swaps with the US would continue.

Wall Street Journal