Trump envoy Witkoff meets Putin in St Petersburg for Ukraine war talks

US envoy Steve Witkoff has held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg about Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as President Donald Trump pushes Kyiv to make a deal that stops the fighting.

Mr Witkoff said in televised remarks at the start of the meeting that he hoped to discuss the resumption of the trilateral talks involving the US, Russia and Ukraine that would allow the technical teams to discuss the next steps towards a peace settlement.

Mr Putin thanked Mr Trump and Mr Witkoff for their efforts to end the war.

The visit came a day after Mr Witkoff met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and some European leaders in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.

Mr Witkoff’s meetings suggested leaders are keen to bring new momentum to US-led peace efforts, more than four years after Russia’s army invaded.

Efforts by the Trump administration since early last year to end the war have made no significant progress, and there was no suggestion of an imminent breakthrough.

Russia and Ukraine are still far apart in their terms for a settlement, as their armies remain locked on the battlefield and they pummel each other with daily long-range strikes.

However, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on Tuesday that the Oslo meeting, which he attended, “made genuine progress”.

Mr Zelensky said freezing the conflict in Ukraine was the “minimum” required from Russia to bring about an end to the war.

“Right now, we have to freeze, and I think this is (the) real way to end this war,” Mr Zelensky said in an interview broadcast on Fox News.

Mr Witkoff and Mr Putin met at St Petersburg’s Constantine Palace, with Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev and Mr Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov also at the table.

Mr Witkoff said Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would join the discussion via a video link.

Mr Witkoff said he would inform Mr Putin about Tuesday’s talks in Oslo, which he described as “productive”, adding that “there is some degree of momentum”.

He thanked Mr Putin for lifting Russia’s ban on diesel exports, which angered some US politicians, adding that it would help reduce prices for US farmers and lorry drivers.

Mr Putin said he was ready to discuss prospects for the restoration of US-Russian economic ties, adding that he is also prepared to discuss the US-led conflict with Iran. Moscow is ready to use its special relationship with Tehran to help bring peace, he said.

Mr Putin was also due to meet on Wednesday with Chinese premier Li Qiang, who was in St Petersburg meeting other top Russian officials, the Kremlin said.

Russia has cultivated its ties with China, and the two countries last month vetoed a US proposal for UN experts to keep monitoring sanctions on Iran.

Mr Witkoff planned to return to Oslo for more consultations after his trip to Russia, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said.

“I think we may have entered a phase now where the Russians are also looking for opportunities for diplomacy,” Mr Store told Norwegian broadcaster NRK on Wednesday morning.

Mr Zelensky was still in Oslo on Wednesday, where he was visiting the country’s parliament and meeting politicians.

Mr Witkoff appeared to be making another attempt at overcoming hurdles that have kept a deal out of reach.

Mr Zelensky said on Tuesday that on the agenda were future security guarantees for Ukraine, the fate of occupied territories, post-war reconstruction, and the possibility of a ceasefire.

Mr Trump said on October 11 that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a ceasefire in attacks on energy infrastructure but Russia has kept hammering Ukraine’s power grid and Kyiv has hit Russian oil refineries.

Ukrainian strikes set an oil export terminal and a depot ablaze in St Petersburg on Sunday as Kyiv launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia in one of its largest aerial attacks of the war.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow is willing to listen to new US proposals about Ukraine but he does not expect any “miracle” from Washington.

At the White House on Tuesday, Mr Trump increased the pressure on Mr Zelensky to come to an agreement with Russia as relations between the two men have soured again.

“We want Zelensky to make a deal,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss.”

If that does not happen, “I think it’s going to be a very bad thing”, Mr Trump said.

Amid fears that Washington was turning its back on Ukraine, Mr Zelensky said Kyiv is once again receiving early warnings from its partners about incoming Russian missiles, after recent strikes that he said occurred without enough notice from allies.

The change happened after Mr Zelensky spoke to his American counterparts, including a phone call with US secretary of state Marco Rubio.

Overnight Russian attacks in Kyiv left three people dead and 12 injured, while 10 residential buildings were damaged, the city’s military administration said.

Energy facilities were targeted in Kyiv and three other cities in Russian attacks early Wednesday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said. Outside the eastern city of Kharkiv, two people died and 11 were wounded when drones exploded in a residential area, he said.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that its forces overnight struck a warehouse, an electrical substation and a bulk carrier at sea that was headed to the Ukrainian port of Odesa.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported on Wednesday that its air defences overnight intercepted 373 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions, as well as illegally annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.