Another round of U.S.-Russia talks on the Ukraine war commenced Wednesday morning with only days to go before President Trump’s deadline to “get a deal where people stop getting killed” expires.
America’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff arrived at the Kremlin on Wednesday morning having flown to Russia overnight. Clutching a notebook embossed with the U.S. Presidential seal, Witkoff shook hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of in-person talks.
Witkoff-Putin talks are now said to be underway. The two men have met several times before, including four previous in-person talks in Moscow, with the last before today having taken place in April.
Earlier this morning, the Kremlin said, Witkoff had met with Putin’s investments tsar Kirill Dmitriev, who has become something of an unofficial envoy to the United States. American-educated Dmitriev recently saw his Western sanctions lifted so he could visit Washington D.C. for talks and frequently promotes the notion of U.S.-Russian business opportunities, with remarks often apparently tailored towards senior American decision-makers.
Today’s talks are something of a last-bid attempt to find peace in Ukraine. American and Russian negotiators have been meeting all year and despite a lot of happy talk from Moscow, any meaningful progress has failed to materialise so far. This resistance to change from Russia has had a noticeable effect on U.S. President Trump, who has transitioned from initial optimism about the power of talk to being “pissed off” and threatening consequences.
Last week, President Trump said he had ordered the repositioning of two American nuclear submarines to the “region” of Russia to keep Moscow polite. The deadline named by President Trump to get a “deal where people stop getting killed” is this Friday, August 8th. Russia faces punitive secondary tariffs if it still refuses to get involved in the peace process in good faith.
While direct tariffs on Russia are regarded by many to have only had a limited impact so far, President Trump has said secondary tariffs — which punish Russia’s trade partners, encouraging them to cut off the rogue state in favour of maintaining their more-lucrative trade relationship with America — will be a punishment felt in Moscow.
Breitbart reported at the time Trump imposed the now-expiring deadline:
Trump also spoke of how First Lady Melania Trump is something of a grounding force to him when he’s deeply involved in Ukraine war peace negotiation.
“I speak to [Putin a lot]… I always hang up and say ‘well that was a nice phone call’ and then missiles are launched into Kyiv,” Trump recalled, “I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘you know, I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation’. And then she says ‘oh really? Another city was just hit.’”
…On the tariffs on Russia’s global customers and the Russian economy more generally, President Trump said he is “very unhappy” with Vladimir Putin for always being ready to talk peace but not act. On the punitive tariffs coming to deny Russia her global trade partners and allies, President Trump said: “we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs… doing secondary tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days, it’s very simple, and they’ll be at 100 per cent, and that’s the way it is, couldn’t be more simple. I hope we don’t have to do it”.
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