(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump escalated pressure on Russia in his bid to secure a ceasefire over its war in Ukraine on the same day that an American envoy met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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“Russia has to get moving,” Trump wrote in a post to his social media platform on Friday, bemoaning the death toll and calling it a “terrible and senseless war.”
Putin completed his talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin said on Telegram. A Russian envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, posted a photograph of Witkoff and Putin on his channel in Telegram and wrote “productive meeting.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier that the meeting was a good opportunity to communicate Russia’s positions to Trump, though he cautioned against expectations for a breakthrough, the Interfax news service reported.
This was the third time that Putin has held talks with Witkoff, who’s become a key intermediary in Trump’s attempts to bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Both previous visits were followed by phone calls between the two presidents.
Witkoff met earlier Friday with Dmitriev at a hotel in St. Petersburg. The two men also held talks in Washington last week after which Dmitriev told CNN the US and Russia had “an understanding for how we can move to finalize the agreement.”
The visit to Russia came as negotiations on a ceasefire have stalled following talks in Saudi Arabia last month. Russia is demanding the reconnection of one of its largest state banks to the SWIFT international messaging system that’s under the European Union’s jurisdiction as a condition for accepting a US-brokered truce in the Black Sea.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of breaching a 30-day moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure that’s due to expire April 18.
Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, is due to take part in mediated talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman on Saturday.
Witkoff met Putin in Moscow for more than three hours in February, where he secured the release of American teacher Marc Fogel. That was followed by the first publicly announced telephone call between Putin and Trump since the US president returned to the White House.
Putin met the American envoy for a second time last month. That was followed by further separate meetings between the US and Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Saudi Arabia, at which the Black Sea truce was discussed.
