Vladimir Putin met Thursday with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff amid President Donald Trump’s looming Friday deadline for the Russian strongman to start out speaking peace with Ukraine.
A Kremlin spokesman stated the assembly lasted three hours and was “useful and constructive.” The spokesman advised Putin offered some sort of proposal for Witkoff to convey to Trump, however didn’t elaborate.
The White Home didn’t instantly present any account of the assembly.
Trump final week set a stricter deadline of “10 or 12 days” for Putin to wind down the warfare towards Ukraine or begin peace negotiations and threatened “severe tariffs” and different financial penalties towards Russia and its financial companions if it refuses.
On this pool {photograph} distributed by the Russian state company Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin greets US Particular Envoy Steve Witkoff previous to their talks in Moscow on August 6, 2025. (GAVRIIL GRIGOROV/POOL/AFP through Getty Photographs)
Moscow had thus far shrugged off Trump’s deadline as empty bluster, noting that he has given quite a few earlier ultimatums on varied points that turned out to be toothless threats.
Russia believes it has the higher hand on the battlefield, no less than within the brief and medium time period, giving it little purpose to conform to even a short ceasefire.
Its troops have made modest advances alongside the lengthy entrance line in Ukraine’s jap Donbas area and ousted Ukrainian troops from a sliver of a Russian border territory that they’d beforehand seized.
Russia has additionally mounted more and more lethal missile and drone assaults on Ukrainian civilian targets.
Dmitriev performed a key position in three rounds of direct talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine, in addition to discussions between Russian and U.S. officers. The negotiations made no progress on ending the three-year warfare following Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.
Trump has not too long ago flip-flopped to a a lot harsher stance on Russia after seeing Putin spurn his calls for for concessions for months.
However Trump has proven himself to be unwilling to take a agency stance of defending Ukraine and sticking to it, giving Putin an incentive to attend out any threats.
The brand new deadline and menace to impose “secondary sanctions” on nations that purchase Russian power, like India, China and Turkey, are notably problematic as a result of these financial powerhouses haven’t any management over Russia’s stance on Ukraine .
They’re unlikely to chop financial ties with Moscow in response to such U.S. calls for, particularly when Trump himself was cozying as much as Putin only a few weeks in the past.
Initially Printed: August 6, 2025 at 9:39 AM EDT
