Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin today as part of a broader effort towards normalizing ties between Washington and Moscow.
The meeting comes as President Donald Trump attempts to hammer out a cease-fire deal that would temporarily halt the fighting in Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.
Witkoff was filmed shaking hands with Putin before the two met at the presidential library in Saint Petersburg to discuss Ukraine and other issues.
Witkoff has quickly become a key player in the Trump administration’s diplomatic strategy, working to encourage dealmaking in the Russia-Ukraine war as well as the Israel-Hamas conflict.
To that end, Putin has variously demanded that Ukraine be formally barred from joining NATO, that the size of Ukrainian army needs to be limited, and that Russia be given the entirety of the territory of the four Ukrainian regions it claims as its own, even though Moscow does not completely control any of them.
Both of those deals crumbled almost immediately, however, with Ukrainian and Russian forces accusing one another of violating the ban on attacking energy sites and Moscow issuing new demands for the Black Sea deal.
“They’re dragging out the talks and trying to get the U.S. stuck in endless and pointless discussions about fake ‘conditions’ just to buy time and then try to grab more land,” Zelenskyy said in Paris last month.
Trump, for his part, also appears to be losing patience with Moscow’s counter proposals.
“Russia has to get moving,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform on Friday. “Too many people 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!!!”
As the United States attempts to wrangle Russia into a cease-fire negotiation, Moscow has been busy trying to pad out its de facto alliances with Iran and China.
“As to the relationship between Russia, China, and the United States, we should not develop a relationship with one other country at the expense of another and vice versa,” Overchuk said.
Putin and Trump have not held an in-person meeting since the beginning of Trump’s second term in January.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Putin and Witkoff might discuss the possibility of a face-to-face between the two leaders.
Peskov told Russian state media that no breakthroughs were expected in cease-fire negotiations during the Witkoff-Putin talks.
Instead, Peskov said the meeting would be a chance for Russia to express its “concerns” to Washington.
