Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday at what Mr Trump has said is a key moment in diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.
Mr Witkoff has emerged as Washington’s key interlocutor with Mr Putin as Mr Trump pushes for a deal to end the war, and has already held three long meetings with the Kremlin leader.
Video published by the Kremlin showed Mr Witkoff and Mr Putin shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries before sitting down on opposite sides of a white oval table.
Mr Putin was accompanied by his foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov and investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
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Mr Trump has said in an interview with Time magazine that Crimea “will stay with Russia” as part of peace negotiations with Ukraine.
The US president accused Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday of prolonging the “killing field” by refusing to surrender the Russia-occupied Crimea peninsula as part of a possible deal.
Russia illegally annexed that area in 2014. Ukrainian leader Mr Zelenskiy has repeated many times during the war that recognising occupied territory as Russian is a red line for his country.
Mr Witkoff’s latest visit to Moscow comes a day after Mr Trump criticised a Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv that killed at least 12 people, and posted on social media: “Vladimir, STOP!”
But Mr 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,” Mr Trump told reporters on Thursday. “I think we’re going to make a deal ... I think we’re getting very close.”
Mr Trump’s remarks come as he makes a renewed push to end the Ukraine war, reportedly on terms favourable to Russia that include recognition of Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, something the Ukrainian president, Mr Zelenskiy, has said he cannot accept.
Mr Trump told reporters in Washington: “I have my own deadline,” amid speculation he wants to have a ceasefire agreed before his 100th day in office on April 30th. He repeatedly claimed during his election campaign that he would end the war within 24 hours of taking office.
The US president insisted that he was applying pressure on Mr Putin to end the war, claiming that an agreement by Moscow not to take over the entire country would be a “pretty big concession”.
“We’re putting a lot of pressure on Russia, and Russia knows that,” he said.
The United States and Russia are moving in the right direction to end the war in Ukraine, but some specific elements of a deal remain to be agreed, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with CBS News.
“The statement by the president [Trump] mentions a deal, and we are ready to reach a deal, but there are still some specific points – elements of this deal which need to be fine-tuned,” Mr Lavrov told the CBS News Face the Nation show, which will air on Sunday.
“We continue our contacts with the American side on the situation in Ukraine, there are several signs that we are moving in the right direction,” Mr Lavrov said.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said Ukraine may need to temporarily cede land as part of a peace deal with Russia, Britain’s BBC reported on Friday.
“One of the scenarios is ... to give up territory. It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” Mr Klitschko was quoted by the BBC as saying in an interview.
Mr Zelenskiy might be forced to accept a “painful solution” to achieve peace, Mr Klitschko said, although the Ukrainian people would “never accept occupation” by Russia.
Russia launched 103 drones in overnight attacks targeting Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force said on Friday.
Air defence units shot down 41 drones, and another 40 drones were redirected by electronic warfare, the air force said on Telegram.
The attacks caused damage in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Cherkasy, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, it added.
Three people, including a child, were killed and eight more were wounded in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad, the regional governor said on Friday.
“The aggressor again conducted a mass attack on the region with drones,” Serhiy Lysak, governor for the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram, adding that 11 drones where destroyed over the region.
Mr Lysak said that several fires had broken out in the city, posting a photo of a fire raging on some levels of a multistorey building. – Agencies
