The Kremlin says Witkoff ‘will bring something from his president to Putin’ in push for a Ukraine peace settlement.
United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is holding talks 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.
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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 frosty tensions during former 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 that prisoner exchanges helped build “trust, which is much needed” between the two sides after ties deteriorated under Biden.