Trump envoy Witkoff to meet Putin in St Petersburg for Ukraine war talks

The visit came a day after Mr Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some European leaders in Oslo.

Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev greets special envoy Steve Witkoff. Picture: TASS Photo via AP

US envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in St Petersburg for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Donald Trump pushes Kyiv to make a deal that stops the fighting.

The visit came a day after Mr Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some European leaders in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.

Mr Witkoff planned to return to Oslo for more consultations after his trip to Russia, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said.

“I think we may have entered a phase now where the Russians are also looking for opportunities for diplomacy,” Mr Store told Norwegian broadcaster NRK on Wednesday morning.

Mr Zelenskyy was still in Oslo on Wednesday, where he was visiting the country’s Parliament and meeting politicians.

Mr Witkoff’s meetings suggested leaders are keen to bring momentum to US-led peace efforts, more than four and a half years after Russia’s army invaded.

Efforts by the Trump administration since early last year to end the war have made no significant progress, and there was no suggestion of an imminent breakthrough.

Russia and Ukraine are still far apart in their terms for a settlement, as their armies remain locked on the battlefield and they pummel each other with daily long-range strikes.

Mr Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said the Russian president will host Mr Witkoff at the Constantine Palace in St Petersburg in the first half of the day on Wednesday.

Presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev will take part in the meeting, he said.

“Negotiations on a settlement in Ukraine are, naturally, an integral part of today’s agenda,” Mr Ushakov told reporters.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow is willing to listen to new US proposals about Ukraine but he does not expect any “miracle” from Washington.

At the White House on Tuesday, President Trump increased the pressure on Mr Zelenskyy to come to an agreement with Russia as relations between the two men have soured again.

“We want Zelenskyy to make a deal,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss.”

If that doesn’t happen, “I think it’s going to be a very bad thing”, Mr Trump said.

Amid fears that Washington was turning its back on Ukraine, Mr Zelenskyy said Kyiv is once again receiving early warnings from its partners about incoming Russian missiles, after recent strikes that he said occurred without enough notice from allies.

The change happened after Mr Zelenskyy spoke with his American counterparts, including a phone call with US secretary of state Marco Rubio.