Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow on last-minute trip before sanctions deadline
Witkoff was greeted by Kirill Dmitriev, Russia's investment envoy and head of its sovereign wealth fund. State media showed the two men strolling together through a park near the Kremlin, deep in conversation.
Trump, increasingly frustrated with Putin over the lack of progress towards a peace deal in Ukraine, has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian exports.
He is exerting particular pressure on India, which along with China is a huge buyer of Russian oil. The Kremlin says threats to penalise countries that trade with Russia are illegal.
More: Moscow urges everyone, including Trump, to be 'very, very cautious' with nuclear rhetoric
Putin is unlikely to bow to Trump's sanctions ultimatum because he believes he is winning the war and his military goals take precedence over his desire to improve relations with the U.S., 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."
Witkoff, a real estate billionaire, has had several long meetings with Putin. He had no diplomatic experience before joining Trump's team in January, but has been simultaneously tasked with seeking ceasefires in the Ukraine and Gaza wars, as well as negotiating in the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.
Critics have portrayed him as out of his depth when pitched into a head-to-head negotiation with Putin, 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, Dmitriev and Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.
More: Top Trump aide accuses India of financing Russia's war in Ukraine
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".
(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski in Moscow, Mark Trevelyan in London and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
12 minutes ago
- CNBC
Asia markets set for muted start as investors assess S&P 500's four-day losing streak
Asia-Pacific markets were poised for a muted start to the day as investors assessed the four-day losing streak for the S&P 500, led by declines in tech stocks. Investors in the region are awaiting India's HSBC Composite flash purchasing managers' index reading for August, which provides an early snapshot of the performance of the private sector economy, expected later in the day. Economists polled by Reuters expect it to come in at 60.5, compared to 61.1 in the month before. Japan's Nikkei 225 was set to open flat, with the futures contract in Chicago at 42,880 while its counterpart in Osaka last traded at 42,820, against the index's Wednesday close of 42,888.55. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was set to start the day lower, with futures tied to the benchmark at 8,902, compared with the index's last close of 8,918. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index is slated to open flat with futures tied to the index at 25,168, compared with the HSI's last close of 25,165.94. U.S. equity futures were little changed in early Asia hours. Overnight stateside, two of the three key benchmarks ended the session in declines as tech stocks dragged the market lower. The broad market S&P 500 index slipped 0.24% to close at 6,395.78, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 0.67% and settled at 21,172.86. Wednesday marked a fourth day of losses for the S&P 500 and a second negative session for the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the outlier, adding 16.04 points, or 0.04%, and settling at 44,938.31.
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tesla (TSLA) Expands Model Y Lineup in China Amid Intensifying EV Competition
Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is one of the . On August 19, Reuters reported that Tesla has started accepting orders for its new Model Y L in China. As shown on the website, the starting price of the new model is 339,000 yuan ($47,184). The Model Y was initially launched in 2020, which moved on to become the world's best-selling car three years later. The model has since lost momentum, partly due to competition from rivals and partly because of weakened market demand for electric vehicles. These conditions led Tesla to introduce a new version of the Model Y in Asia Pacific markets in January. The company then registered plans with Chinese authorities for the new Model Y L in July. A luxury electric vehicle driving in the city, its battery technology powering its progress. Filing information published on China's industry ministry website in July has also revealed a longer-range, rear-wheel drive Model 3 also coming to the Chinese market soon. Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is an automotive and clean energy company that leverages advanced artificial intelligence in its autonomous driving technology and robotics initiatives. While we acknowledge the potential of TSLA as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
San Francisco Chronicle
39 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Gabbard slashing intelligence office workforce and cutting budget by over $700 million
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Office of the Director of National Intelligence will dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually, the Trump administration announced Wednesday. The move amounts to a major downsizing of the office responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including on counterterrorism and counterintelligence, as President Donald Trump has tangled with assessments from the intelligence community. His administration also this week has revoked the security clearances of dozens of former and current officials, while last month declassifying documents meant to call into question long-settled judgments about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. 'Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence," Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement announcing a more than 40% workforce reduction. She added: 'Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people's trust which has long been eroded.' Division tackling foreign influence is targeted Among the changes are to the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which is meant to track influence operations from abroad and threats to elections. Officials said it has become 'redundant' and that its core functions would be integrated into other parts of the government. The reorganization is part of a broader administration effort to rethink how it tracks foreign threats to American elections, a topic that has become politically loaded given Trump's long-running resistance to the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election. In February, for instance, Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those that target U.S. elections. The Trump administration also has made sweeping cuts at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation's critical infrastructure, including election systems. And the State Department in April said it shut down its office that sought to deal with misinformation and disinformation that Russia, China and Iran have been accused of spreading. Republicans cheer the downsizing, and Democrats pan it Reaction to the news broke along partisan lines in Congress, where Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the decision as 'an important step towards returning ODNI to that original size, scope, and mission. And it will help make it a stronger and more effective national security tool for President Trump.' The panel's top Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, pledged to carefully review Gabbard's proposals and "conduct rigorous oversight to ensure any reforms strengthen, not weaken, our national security.' He said he was not confident that would be the case 'given Director Gabbard's track record of politicizing intelligence.' Gabbard's efforts to downsize the agency she leads is in keeping with the cost-cutting mandate the administration has employed since its earliest days, when Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency oversaw mass layoffs of the federal workforce. It's the latest headline-making move by an official who just a few month ago had seemed out of favor with Trump over her analysis of Iran's nuclear capabilities but who in recent weeks has emerged as a key loyalist with her latest actions. Changes to efforts to combat foreign election influence The Foreign Malign Influence Center was created by the Biden administration in 2022 to respond to what the U.S. intelligence community had assessed as attempts by Russia and other adversaries to interfere with American elections. Its role, ODNI said when it announced the center's creation, was to coordinate and integrate intelligence pertaining to malign influence. The office in the past has joined forces with other federal agencies to debunk and alert the public to foreign disinformation intended to influence U.S. voters. For example, it was involved in an effort to raise awareness about a Russian video that falsely depicted mail-in ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania that circulated widely on social media in the weeks before the 2024 presidential election. Gabbard said Wednesday she would be refocusing the center's priorities, asserting it had a 'hyper-focus' on work tied to elections and that it was 'used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition.' Its core functions, she said, will be merged into other operations. The center is set to sunset at the end of 2028, but Gabbard is terminating it 'in all but name,' said Emerson Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, which tracks foreign disinformation. Though Gabbard said in a fact sheet that the center's job was redundant because other agencies already monitor foreign influence efforts targeting Americans, Brooking refuted that characterization and said the task of parsing intelligence assessments across the government and notifying decision-makers was 'both important and extremely boring.'
