United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg to discuss the war in Ukraine, according to the Kremlin.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Friday that Witkoff and Putin were in the Russian city.
“The painstaking work continues. Naturally, Witkoff, as a special representative of President Trump, will bring something from his president to Putin,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency.
“Putin will listen to it. The conversation on various aspects of the Ukrainian settlement will continue.”
Earlier on Friday, Russian state media published footage of Witkoff and Russia’s economic negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, leaving a hotel in Saint Petersburg.
Talks to secure a ceasefire deal to end the Ukraine war have stalled amid negotiations on the conditions to end the conflict.
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.
In an interview with NBC News, Trump also threatened tariffs on Russian oil “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”.
On Friday morning, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that “Russia has to get moving.
“Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war – A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!” he said.
Breakthrough not expected
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.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from the Russian capital Moscow, correspondent Yulia Shapovalova noted that the Kremlin is “not expecting any breakthrough” as a result of the meeting between Putin and Witkoff.
“The message from the US president to Russia, brought by Steve Witkoff, is quite clear: It’s a ceasefire in Ukraine,” Shapovalova said.
“But analysts believe that Putin is not quite interested in showing Russia’s readiness for a ceasefire as Russia slowly but steadily is moving forward on the Ukrainian fronts.”
She added that Russia’s demands also remain unchanged.
It is opposed to the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), wants a reduced US presence in Europe, and has called for security guarantees and noninterference in its internal affairs.
“Having said that, we can see now that oil prices are going down on the market, which may mean that Russia won’t be able to wage this war in the long run,” Shapovalova said.
Mending ties
Meanwhile, Witkoff has quickly become a key figure in discussions between Washington and Moscow, as tensions during former US President Joe Biden’s administration have eased.
After his last meeting with Putin, Witkoff said the Russian president was a “great leader” and “not a bad guy”.
More recently, US and Russian officials held talks on Thursday in Turkiye.
Both sides said they had made progress towards normalising the work of their diplomatic missions.
That 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 the prisoner exchanges helped build “trust, which is much needed” between the two sides after ties deteriorated under Biden.
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