Washington: President Donald Trump’s trusted foreign envoy, Steve Witkoff, will arrive in Moscow on Wednesday after the Kremlin requested a meeting with him in a last-ditch effort to avoid the punishing new sanctions Trump has threatened to impose this week, people familiar with the matter said.
He’s set to meet Russian officials — including potential talks with President Vladimir Putin — amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
Whether Putin can convince Witkoff — and, by extension, Trump — that he is interested in ending the war is a question mark. Trump has cast doubt on Putin’s willingness to stop the fighting and appears wary of being strung along by a leader he now openly distrusts, reports CNN.
Putin, meanwhile, has maintained his maximalist ambitions for the conflict, including capturing the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and insisting Ukraine limit the size of its military.
Trump said a day ahead of Witkoff’s meeting he would wait until the talks conclude to decide whether to impose the new sanctions.
A day ahead of Witkoff’s visit, Trump spoke by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss potential sanctions on Moscow, according to people familiar with the conversation. In a readout of the meeting posted on social media, Zelensky said those
Zelensky also said they discussed the increase of American weapons support to Ukraine, paid for by NATO allies, a policy Trump green-lit last month.
The US president has grown increasingly impatient at Russia’s resistance to his peace efforts, calling the air attacks “disgusting” and accusing Putin of peddling “bullsh*t” in their tense phone
Trump late last week has also ordered the repositioning of two US nuclear submarines in an effort to be “prepared” for any eventuality – a response to inflammatory remarks by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and current deputy chairman of its security council.
