US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in St. Petersburg for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine conflict. The visit comes after Moscow and Washington reached a diesel deal and amid an escalating feud between Trump and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.
Witkoff traveled from Oslo, where on Tuesday he met Zelensky and the leaders of Norway and Finland, alongside European and NATO officials. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the discussions as “positive,” saying Witkoff will “now, armed with those ideas, be able to go to St. Petersburg and share them with the Russian side, and let’s see if we can make some progress.”
An unnamed US official told Reuters that the Oslo talks covered security guarantees, a postwar economic plan, and a broader European security architecture. Washington hopes the outreach will pave the way for direct trilateral negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine, and the US.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is expected to participate virtually in the Putin talks. He had joined talks in Oslo remotely and reportedly pressed Kiev to halt attacks on Russian refineries, according to Axios.
Prior to the St. Petersburg talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow sees every meeting between Putin and Trump’s envoys as “very important and well-timed.”
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would consider economic initiatives that were “advantageous to us,” but ruled out unilateral political concessions, noting that future US administrations would not be bound by their predecessors’ decisions.
Witkoff’s visit comes after Trump’s October 9 agreement with Putin to ease sanctions on Russian diesel sales, which the US leader said would help relieve high fuel prices for American consumers. Zelensky subsequently condemned the agreement as a “weak decision.”
Trump has also repeatedly demanded that Zelensky halt attacks on Russian oil refineries, something he has categorically refused to do. As tensions escalated, Trump suggested that Zelensky – whose presidential term expired more than two years ago – should be replaced, while multiple outlets reported that Ukrainian troops were not receiving advance warnings on Russian ballistic missile strikes and were encountering issues with Starlink communications, which are crucial for drone control. The US denied it had suspended intelligence-sharing.
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