MOSCOW: US Presi­dent Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with President Vladimir Putin on Friday in St Petersburg about the search for a peace deal on Ukraine as Trump told Russia to “get moving”.

Putin was shown on state TV greeting Witkoff in St Petersburg’s presidential library at the start of the negotiations. The Izvestia news outlet earlier released video of Witkoff leaving a hotel in the city, accompanied by Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy.

Witkoff has emerged as a key figure in the on-off rapprochement between Moscow and Washington amid talk on the Russian side of potential joint investments in the Arctic and in Russian rare earth minerals.

However, the talks come at a time when US-Russia dialogue aimed at agreeing a ceasefire ahead of a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine appears to have stalled over disagreements around conditions for a full pause in hostilities.

Kremlin says there is no need to expect any breakthroughs

The US leader told NBC News last month that he was “pissed off” with his Russian counterpart, while top US diplomat Marco Rubio warned last week that Washington would not tolerate “endless negotiations” with Russia over the conflict.

“Russia has to get moving,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding that the conflict was “senseless” and “should have never happened”.

Shortly after his social media post, the Kremlin said talks between Putin and Witkoff had started. The meeting, taking place in Putin’s home city of Saint Petersburg, would touch on “various aspects of the Ukrainian settlement”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“There is no need to expect any breakthroughs here, the process of normalising relations is ongoing,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian state media.

Asked whether the two would discuss a possible meeting between Putin and Trump, Peskov was quoted as saying: “Maybe”.

Witkoff has held two previous meetings with Putin in Russia since Trump returned to the White House in January.

After their last meeting, Witkoff, a long-time Trump ally who worked with the US president in real estate, said Putin was a “great leader” and “not a bad guy”.

The envoy’s praise of a president long seen by the United States as an autocratic adversary highlights the dramatic turn in Washington’s approach to dealings with the Kremlin since Trump took office for a second term.

Earlier in the day, Witkoff met Russia’s top economic negotiator Kirill Dmitriev.

Rocky road

Trump has pushed for a broad rapprochement with Moscow, which has yielded some results.

On Thursday, Russia freed dual US-Russian ballet dancer Ksenia Karelina from prison in exchange for suspected tech smuggler Arthur Petrov, the second exchange between Moscow and Washington in less than two months.

Karelina, arrested last January while visiting Russia to see family, was serving a 12-year sentence on “treason” charges after she donated the equivalent of around $50 to a pro-Ukraine charity.

The head of Moscow’s foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, said on Friday that Russia would discuss more prisoner swaps in the future.

Witkoff’s visit to Russia also comes ahead of crucial talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear programme, scheduled for Saturday in Oman. Witkoff, whose sweeping remit covers the conflicts in both Ukraine and Gaza, is set to lead the US delegation for the negotiations.

Moscow, which counts Iran as a close ally, has urged for a diplomatic solution and warned military confrontation would be a “global catastrophe”.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2025