US envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Friday in a four-hour meeting focused on a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
The talks were described by Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev as “productive.”
It is the third time Witkoff has visited Russia and met with Putin since President Trump’s return to the White House. Trump has been pushing for an end to the war since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has previously publicly criticized both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin.
Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, appeared to suggest that Russian forces could remain in the parts of the east which they already occupy, separated by Ukrainian troops and a demilitarized zone. Kellogg later clarified that he was not proposing a partition, but a potential allied “resiliency force in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty.”
