Trump envoy's Putin love-in: Beaming Vladimir welcomes US negotiator Steve Witkoff with open arms and a few words in English as they meet to discuss Ukraine a day after ignoring Donald's peace plea

Daily Mail​

25-04-2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed Donald Trump 's special envoy Steve Witkoff with open arms as the pair met in Moscow today to discuss a US-brokered peace plan for Ukraine.
Video published by Russian state media showed Witkoff meeting Putin at the Kremlin, with the duo smiling, shaking hands and exchanging a few words in English before beginning talks.
Putin, who is understood to be fluent in English, rarely speaks the language and has only done so on a few public occasions.
The pair's meeting is still ongoing, as of 2.30pm BST, Russian news agency Ria Novosti said on Telegram, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Putin is joined by his foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov and investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
Witkoff was seen strolling in central Moscow with Dmitriev, who has played a prominent role in contacts with the Trump administration, earlier on Friday.
The billionaire real estate investor is playing a key role in Washington's peace efforts and has now met Putin four times since Trump's return to the White House.
Trump wants to broker a truce between Moscow and Kyiv, but has failed to extract any major concessions from Putin despite several rounds of negotiation. He has threatened to walk away from talks if he does not see progress towards a ceasefire.
Witkoff and Putin's meeting today came just hours after a car exploded in the Moscow region, killing Russian General Yaroslav Moskalik. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for what appeared to be a deliberate attack.
Russia has continued its bombardment of Ukraine and last night launched a drone strike across five regions, killing at least three people and injuring 10 others, a day after Trump rebuked Putin for a deadly missile and drone attack on Kyiv.
Trump criticised the Kremlin on Thursday after a drone attack on Kyiv killed at least 12 people, and posted on social media: 'Vladimir, STOP!'
He wrote on social media: 'Vladimir, STOP! ', adding 'Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!'
When asked how he would respond if Russia did not accept a deal, Trump said Thursday: 'I won't be happy, let me put it that way. Things will happen.'
But Trump also said there had been significant progress in peace talks.
'This next few days is going to be very important. Meetings are taking place right now,' Trump told reporters on Thursday. 'I think we're going to make a deal ... I think we're getting very close.'
The US has not revealed the details of its peace plan, but has suggested freezing the front line and accepting Russian control of Crimea - a peninsula annexed by the Kremlin in 2014 - in exchange for peace.
Trump was quoted as saying in a TIME magazine interview published on Friday: 'Crimea will stay with Russia. And Zelensky understands that.'
Ukraine has rejected ceding ground to Moscow, and says it will not accept Russian control of Crimea.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has in recent months accepted that he might have to try to secure the return of some land captured by Russia through diplomacy once a ceasefire is in place.
Zelensky on Thursday expressed frustration at a lack of 'pressure' on Putin from the West, despite the United States warning of repercussions if Moscow refused a deal.
'I don't see any strong pressure on Russia or any new sanctions packages against Russia's aggression,' he said during a visit to South Africa.
Putin last month rejected a US proposal of a full and unconditional ceasefire that Zelensky has accepted and repeatedly called for since.
Trump, who has been accused of favouring Russia and has repeatedly vilified Zelensky, said Thursday that the main concession Russia would make in any peace deal was 'stopping taking the whole country '.
Moscow currently occupies around 20 percent of Ukraine and in addition to Crimea has attempted to annex four other Ukrainian regions.
Witkoff told Fox News earlier this month that a peace settlement hinged on the status of the 'so-called five territories' - a comment that drew a sharp rebuke from Zelensky, who accused the US envoy of 'spreading Russian narratives'.
As Witkoff arrived in Russia on Friday, authorities there reported a senior general had been killed in a car bombing outside Moscow.
Kyiv did not claim responsibility for the attack, though it bore the hallmarks of previous assassinations claimed by Ukraine.
Kommersant newspaper said a second person was also killed in the attack, some 10 miles from Moscow. TASS, the state news agency, reported just one.
Footage showed a powerful blast destroying a Volkswagen Golf at around 10.40am local time (7.40am GMT), which reports said 'threw the general several metres away'.
Russian media outlet Baza, which has sources in Russia 's law enforcement agencies, said a bomb in a parked car on Bulvar Nesterova had been detonated remotely when the officer - who lived locally - walked past.
The explosion occurred as US special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin - coloured by a recent flurry of attacks on Kyiv that drew ire from Trump on Thursday, urging 'Vladimir, STOP!'
Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said earlier today that Moscow was 'ready to reach a deal' with the mediating United States to end the war in Ukraine, adding that some elements of a proposed deal still need to be 'fine tuned'.
Russia also fired more than 100 drones at Ukraine between late Thursday and early Friday, hours before Witkoff's visit to Moscow, the Ukrainian army said.
A Russian drone strike killed at least three people including a child in the central Ukrainian city of Pavlograd, rescuers said.
The moment of the explosion said to have killed Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces
Images from the scene of the explosion posted on social media showed a blaze that had gutted a car parked near blocks of flats in the town east of Moscow.
Security camera footage posted by the Izvestia newspaper showed a massive explosion from a parked car, sending fragments flying into the air.
The blast happens just as someone can be seen walking towards the car.
The TASS state news agency reported, citing unnamed law enforcement officers, that 'the cause of the blast was an improvised explosive device' and that fragments found at the scene had been sent for testing.
It reported that the explosive device was packed with metal fragments designed to cause maximum harm.
'According to emergency response officials, the device had the explosive power of more than 300 grams of TNT,' TASS reported.
RIA Novosti state news agency cited an unnamed emergency services official as saying that according to initial information, one person was killed.
Russian Telegram channel Mash, which has purported links to law enforcement, wrote that the explosion had killed a senior military figure from the main operational directorate of Russia's General Staff.
Russia's Investigative Committee confirmed that Lieutenant General Moskalik had been killed in the explosion.
Moskalik represented Russia's General Staff in talks with Ukraine in Paris in 2015, following the 2014 invasion of Crimea.
'A Volkswagen Golf exploded after an improvised explosive device stuffed with pellets went off,' spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said, commenting on the explosion.
The blast appeared to be similar in nature to previous attacks on Russians linked to Moscow's military offensive in Ukraine.
Kyiv has in some cases claimed responsibility. A Ukrainian source told the BBC in December that they had killed another Lt Gen, Igor Kirillov, with a device hidden in a scooter, detonated remotely outside a residential block.
It comes at a sensitive time, with Ukraine and Russia now both vocally calling for a ceasefire - though demanding different terms.
Donald Trump's vice president, JD Vance, announced on Wednesday that the US plans to step back from negotiations unless both sides agree to a peace deal.
But a blistering attack on Kyiv - the deadliest of its kind since last July, killing at least 12 people - prompted a rare rebuke from the president on his Truth Social platform.
'I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!' he wrote.
The attacks also forced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky forced to return to Kyiv, cutting short an overseas summit with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Zelensky had been expected to attend Pope Francis' funeral on Saturday before the attack.
Lavrov added in his address today that 'we only target military goals or civilian sites used by the military' - as Ukraine reported three people including a child had been killed in Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region.
He also insisted Russia was keen on working towards a ceasefire.
But with the United States threatening to pull out of its role, mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko conceded that Ukraine may have to lose some territory in order to make a peace deal work.
He told the BBC that such a deal would be unfair, but could help to stop the fighting.
Ukraine has long opposed the American suggestion that it could hand over territory in concession to a belligerent invading force.
It will also be seeking security guarantees from partners to ward off Russia reopening the conflict at a later date, with Zelensky citing dozens of times Moscow has breached ceasefire agreements in recent years.
Despite the Kremlin's insistence it is 'ready' to reach a deal, Russian attacks on Ukraine continued overnight.
Three people have died and 10 others are injured after a drone struck a residential building in a south-eastern Ukrainian city, officials said on Friday.
Among the civilians killed in the night-time drone strike in Pavlohrad, in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, were a child and a 76-year-old woman, the head of the regional administration, Serhii Lysak, wrote on Telegram.
Russian forces fired 103 Shahed and decoy drones at five Ukrainian regions overnight, Ukraine's air force reported.
Authorities in the north-eastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions reported damage to civilian infrastructure but no casualties.
Russia pounded Kyiv in an hours-long barrage on Thursday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 87 in its deadliest assault on the Ukrainian capital since July.