MOSCOW: US envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Friday to tout Washington's plan to settle the Ukraine conflict, a day after Donald Trump issued a direct appeal to the Russian president to halt his offensive. Trump has been trying to broker a truce between Moscow and Kyiv to end three years of fighting, but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin despite several rounds of negotiation.
Video published by Russian state media showed Witkoff meeting Putin at the Kremlin, with the two smiling, shaking hands and exchanging a few words in English before beginning talks. The American investor is playing a key role in Washington's peace efforts and has already met Putin three times since Trump returned to the White House in January. Trump has threatened to walk away from talks if he does not see progress towards a ceasefire. On Thursday, after Russian attacks on Kyiv killed 12 people, Trump wrote on social media: "Vladimir, STOP!", adding "Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!" When asked how he would respond if Russia did not accept a deal, Trump said on Thursday: "I won't be happy, let me put it that way. Things will happen."
The United States has not revealed the details of its peace plan, but has suggested freezing the front line and accepting Russian control of Crimea — a peninsula annexed by the Kremlin in 2014 — in exchange for peace. Trump was quoted as saying in a TIME magazine interview published on Friday: "Crimea will stay with Russia. And Zelensky understands that." Ukraine has rejected ceding ground to Moscow and says it will not accept Russian control of Crimea. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has in recent months accepted that he might have to try to secure the return of some land captured by Russia through diplomacy once a ceasefire is in place.
Zelensky had expressed frustration at a lack of "pressure" on Putin from the West, despite the United States warning of repercussions if Moscow refused a deal. "I don't see any strong pressure on Russia or any new sanctions packages against Russia's aggression," he said during a visit to South Africa. Putin last month rejected a US proposal of a full and unconditional ceasefire that Zelensky has accepted and repeatedly called for since.
Trump, who has been accused of favouring Russia and has repeatedly vilified Zelensky, said on Thursday that the main concession Russia would make in any peace deal was "stopping taking the whole country". Witkoff said earlier this month that a peace settlement hinged on the status of the "so-called five territories" — a comment that drew a sharp rebuke from Zelensky, who accused the US envoy of "spreading Russian narratives".
As Witkoff arrived in Russia on Friday, authorities there reported a senior general had been killed in a car bombing outside Moscow. An explosive device ripped through a parked car near Moscow killing a senior Russian general, investigators said, in an attack that resembled previous killings claimed by Ukraine.
Authorities named the victim as General-lieutenant Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the main operational directorate of the military's General Staff, which is in charge of army operations. Kyiv has not commented on the attack, which bore the hallmarks of previous assassinations of military figures and high-profile backers of the Kremlin's offensive over the last three years.
Ukraine has called some of them "legitimate targets" and sees the attacks as retribution for Moscow's military campaign, which has resulted in tens of thousands of people killed. Russia's Investigative Committee said it had opened a murder probe after a Volkswagen Golf blew up outside a block of flats in the town of Balashikha, east of Moscow. "Our military figure was killed as a result of a terrorist attack," Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. Investigators have not confirmed this charge. — AFP
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