US Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is in Russia for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the third such meeting in a bid to get the Kremlin to accept a full ceasefire in Ukraine.
Witkoff, who has been pressing the Kremlin to accept a truce, initially met with Putin’s envoy, Kirill Dmitriev. The meeting comes amid growing questions about Putin’s willingness to stop the more than three-year war.
Earlier on Friday, US President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that “Russia has to get moving” towards ending the war, adding that it is “terrible and senseless.”
Ukraine has endorsed a US ceasefire proposal, but Russia has effectively blocked it by imposing far-reaching conditions.
European governments have accused Putin of dragging his feet.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said ahead of the talks that “breakthroughs are not expected,” adding that “the process of normalisation of relations is ongoing.”
“Russia continues to use bilateral talks with the United States to delay negotiations about the war in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin remains uninterested in serious peace negotiations to end the war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an assessment late on Thursday.
Washington remains committed to securing a peace deal, even though four weeks have passed since it made its ceasefire proposals, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.
“It is a dynamic that will not be solved militarily. It is a meat grinder,” Bruce said, adding that “nothing else can be discussed…until the shooting and the killing stops.”
