President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Kremlin, Steve Witkoff, will meet with Russian officials in Moscow on Wednesday, an anonymous American source confirmed to AFP on Tuesday – just two days before the US deadline to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or face a new wave of American sanctions.
Witkoff is expected to hold high-level meetings with Russian leadership, but it remains unclear whether the talks will include Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom Witkoff has met with multiple times in the past.
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US President Donald Trump speaks with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others at the White House Rose Garden on Monday, July 21, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
Trump has given Moscow until Friday to make real progress towards peace in Ukraine or risk sweeping new penalties, including secondary tariffs aimed at punishing countries that continue trading with Russia – particularly China and India.
The White House has not yet outlined the topics that Witkoff is expected to address while in Russia, but Trump’s threats have raised concerns about possible global market disruption if he imposes secondary tariffs on some of the world’s biggest oil buyers.
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Despite the mounting pressure, Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent months, and peace negotiations remain stalled.
Several rounds of talks in Istanbul have yielded no concrete progress, with Moscow demanding territorial concessions and Kyiv insisting on a full ceasefire before any agreement is reached.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly rejected Putin’s demands, calling them “nonstarters” and urging allies to push for regime change in Moscow. Ukraine continues to push for the return of its occupied territories and firm security guarantees, including future NATO membership.
When asked on Monday whether there was anything Russia could do to avoid the looming sanctions, Trump told reporters: “We’ve got to get to a deal where people stop getting killed.”
“You know, they’re wily characters and they’re pretty good at avoiding sanctions,” he added about the Kremlin. “So we’ll see what happens.”
Witkoff’s Moscow visit comes days after Trump wrote on TruthSocial that two US nuclear submarines had been deployed “to the region” following a testy online exchange with Kremlin insider Dmitry Medvedev.
Trump did not clarify whether the vessels were nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed, nor did he disclose their precise locations – which the US military typically keeps classified.
Russia responded by urging restraint. “We believe that everyone should be very, very cautious with nuclear rhetoric,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, warning that any escalation involving nuclear forces would be dangerous and destabilizing.
Peskov said in other comments that Moscow views the Witkoff meeting this week as important, but cautioned that there was a long road ahead before peace could be achieved.
“I would like to remind you that the president himself does not rule out the possibility of holding such a meeting [with Zelensky],” Peskov said Tuesday. “But only after the necessary work is done at the expert level and the appropriate distance is overcome.”
Putin reiterated his conditions for peace last week – including Ukrainian withdrawal from illegally annexed regions and abandonment of its NATO ambitions. They remain unchanged.
