US envoy Wikoff lands in Russia for talks with Putin ahead of sanctions deadline

France 24

2 days ago

US special envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in Moscow and was greeted by Russia's investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev, a source told Reuters on Wednesday, after the Kremlin said it did not rule out Witkoff meeting President Vladimir Putin.
US President Donald Trump, who warned that he would impose sanctions on Russia if Moscow does not agree to a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine before Friday, had said earlier that Witkoff might be travelling to Moscow this week in yet another diplomatic effort to bring the hostilities to an end.
The Russian source, involved in the visit's preparation, did not say who Witkoff would meet in Moscow but a source familiar with the plan told Reuters in Washington on Tuesday that Witkoff would meet with Russian leadership on Wednesday and the Kremlin said on Monday that Witkoff's meeting with Putin might take place.
Trump said that if Russia fails to agree a ceasefire in Ukraine by Friday, it will face new sanctions. The measures would include heavy tariffs on countries that buy its oil, of which the biggest are India and China.
Will it work?
But Putin is unlikely to bow to the ultimatum because he believes he is winning the war and his military goals take precedence over his desire to improve relations with the US, three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters.
"The visit of Witkoff is a last-ditch effort to find a face-saving solution for both sides. I don't think, however, that there will be anything of a compromise between the two," said Gerhard Mangott, an Austrian analyst and member of a group of Western academics and journalists who have met regularly with Putin over the years.
"Russia will insist it is prepared to have a ceasefire, but (only) under the conditions that it has formulated for the last two or three years already," he said in a telephone interview.
"Trump will be under pressure to do what he has announced – to raise tariffs for all the countries buying oil and gas, and uranium probably as well, from Russia."
The Russian sources told Reuters that Putin is sceptical that yet more US sanctions will have much of an impact after successive waves of economic penalties during 3-1/2 years of war.
The Russian leader does not want to anger Trump, and he realises that he may be spurning a chance to improve relations with Washington and the West, but his war goals are more important to him, two of the sources said.
Witkoff, a real estate billionaire, has had several long meetings with Putin. He had no diplomatic experience before joining Trump's team in January, and critics have portrayed him as out of his depth when pitched into a head-to-head negotiation with Russia's paramount leader for the past 25 years.
On his last visit in April, Witkoff – unaccompanied by diplomats or aides – cut a lonely figure when seated across the table from Putin, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov and Russian investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
Critics have at times accused Witkoff of echoing the Kremlin 's narrative. In an interview with journalist Tucker Carlson in March, for example, Witkoff said there was no reason why Russia would want to absorb Ukraine or bite off more of its territory, and it was "preposterous" to think that Putin would want to send his army marching across Europe.
Ukraine and many of its European allies say the opposite. Putin denies any designs on NATO territory, and Moscow has repeatedly cast such charges as evidence of European hostility and "Russophobia".