Analysts said that does not bode well for bilateral relations. “If it goes that way and the United States insists that the election is illegitimate, I think that will further increase the hostility between Trump and Lula,” Evan Ellis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, told AFP. “An embittered Lula, liberated from future elections, may double down on pushing back against the Trump administration on everything — from its campaign against the cartels, to Cuba, to Iran, Israel, tariffs.”

Trump, however, was not entirely sour on Brazil’s leftist president, declaring, “I like Lula, I get along with him very well.” Both are seasoned veterans of political confrontations, capable of negotiating but reluctant to make concessions. Lula, 81, and Trump, 80, have no trouble communicating by phone and have met several times — showering each other with public praise before reverting to their fundamental disagreements.

The two governments are in a diplomatic impasse. The US still does not have an ambassador stationed in Brasilia, and Brazil’s ambassador to Washington finds herself in limbo after her US visa was revoked.

– Partners but rivals –

Despite that standoff, there are shared interests and significant economic ties. Brazil is the leading trading power in Latin America. It supplies the US, the world’s largest economy, with raw materials, coffee, and meat — key products as Trump grapples with persistent inflation at home. Washington also has an interest in getting Brazil to distance itself from China and wants to conclude agreements on rare earths, crucial for technology and manufacturing.

Lula, who has pointedly proclaimed that Brazil does not fit in anyone’s “backyard,” will be bolstered on the international stage by securing his fourth presidential term. His government is the main standard bearer of the Latin American left in the face of the Shield of the Americas, Trump’s effort to fight cartels and forge ties with governments in a region that has shifted to the right. Larissa Wachholz at the Brazilian Center for International Relations expects Brazil to continue to “diversify its relationships.”

But on regional security and organized crime, the interests of Washington and Brasilia could converge. James Story, a former US ambassador and founder of Global Frontier Advisors consultancy, said there’s potential for sharing intelligence and financial and banking information. But if the Shield of the Americas were to organize joint military operations in the region, Brazil would remain on the sidelines, he predicted. “Brazil charts out its own path on a lot of these issues,” Story said. “So I don’t anticipate Brazil being particularly helpful… nor do I think the US government is going to approach Brazil to help.”

© 2024 AFP

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The “situation is tense and there’s a bit of a stalemate,” ambassador Roelf Meyer told AFP on the sidelines of an event to launch his memoir. “My view is that it can be addressed if there is direct dialogue between the US and South African authorities, and we hope we can establish that,” he said. A chief negotiator for South Africa’s white nationalist government in talks that would lead to the end of apartheid, Meyer was named as ambassador in April, nearly a year after the previous envoy was expelled.

South Africa is braced for the possibility of being removed from Washington’s duty-free trade programme for Africa, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which has been extended to December 2028 and is reviewed annually. Meyer said he hoped the talks on the deal could bring “the right facts across in the process before decisions are being taken”.

Highlighting issues disputed between the two countries, Washington in mid-September announced restrictions on visas for South Africans who promote “race-based discrimination, incite violence, or enable land confiscation without compensation”. Last year, the United States launched a programme to resettle white Afrikaners who claim they face persecution in South Africa, which the government rejects.

“We have to be able to sit down and put the facts on the table,” said Meyer, 79. “South Africa is a sovereign country, like the US is, and we have to respect from each side that situation.” The standoff resulted in Washington refusing to accredit Pretoria for G20 meetings in the United States, including the December summit.

Asked about calls from countries like Germany for South Africa to be included, Meyer told the event that Pretoria had “moved on”. Representatives of South Africa would take part in the business arm of the G20, called the B20, in November in Washington, he said.

© 2024 AFP

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Trump said again last week that he “may” meet with Kim during his Asian tour next month and that it “would be exciting”. But on Monday, he said: “I don’t know… I’m not sure that anybody’s asking for a meeting,” adding that his “relationship with Kim Jong Un is very good.” Any meeting between the leaders would trigger a media frenzy, but Pyongyang’s deepening ties with Russia and China could complicate Trump’s bid for a potential announcement of talks ahead of the midterms. Analysts say the mercurial US leader is seeking a foreign policy win as the Iran war drags on. Kim, by contrast, may have less to gain from another high-profile encounter with Trump, they say.

Kim’s decision to send troops and weapons to aid Moscow’s war in Ukraine has won critical backing from Russian President Vladimir Putin, helping North Korea blunt UN sanctions over its nuclear programme. North Korea’s economy, in fact, grew more than three percent for a third straight year in 2025, South Korea’s central bank estimated in July, citing Pyongyang’s “expansion of economic cooperation with Russia” as its major driver. China, Washington’s archrival, remains North Korea’s key ally — a major source of diplomatic and economic support for the country.

“I see almost no possibility of a meeting,” Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, told AFP. “For Kim Jong Un, maintaining the status quo is the best option right now.” And last week, Seoul’s ambassador to Washington, Kang Kyung-wha, said no concrete progress had been made toward a meeting between Kim and Trump.

– ‘In love’ –

Trump met Kim three times during his first term — once declaring they were “in love” — in high-profile summits aimed at securing a denuclearisation deal, but no tangible progress was made. Since then, North Korea has continued to expand and develop its arsenal. South Korea’s dovish President Lee Jae Myung — who has repeatedly offered Pyongyang talks without preconditions — suggested in September that Washington seek a freeze, rather than the immediate elimination, of its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief. Critics say such an approach risks tacitly accepting North Korea as a nuclear-armed state while allowing Pyongyang to win sanctions relief without giving up its arsenal.

Analysts say China has also appeared to move towards implicit acceptance. Kim hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Pyongyang in June, soon after Xi held back-to-back summits in Beijing with Trump and Putin. Neither Pyongyang nor Beijing mentioned North Korean denuclearisation in their official statements — an omission experts saw as a sign of China’s tacit consent. The dividing of the “United States and Japan on one side and North Korea, China and Russia on the other … into blocs, is creating significant opportunities for North Korea,” Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.

– ‘Idiots’ –

Pyongyang has repeatedly made clear it is no longer prepared to discuss denuclearisation. Kim’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong said in September the country’s nuclear-armed status was “absolute” and called those hoping for its denuclearisation “idiots”. The more consequential question is “whether Washington would begin negotiating on the operational assumption that North Korea’s arsenal is not going to disappear,” Vladimir Tikhonov, Korean Studies professor at the University of Oslo, told AFP. “I see that a possibility of such a policy shift is substantial.”

Meanwhile, China’s influence rests partly on its role as an intermediary between Pyongyang and Washington, analysts say, and a direct Trump-Kim deal that sidelines Beijing in Shenzhen could therefore erode its leverage over both sides. “A dialogue may be pursued with the understanding of Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping,” said Yang Moo-jin, former president of the University of North Korean Studies. But with Russia delivering immediate benefits, analysts said that time and strategic momentum are on Kim’s side. “Giving up all these benefits, withdrawing from the Russia-Ukraine war, and entering uncertain dialogue with the United States is difficult to imagine right now,” Yang said.

– Hieun SHIN

© 2024 AFP

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“I wanted…to tell you all how honored I am to represent France in the US and to continue to keep the French-American relationship alive,” Lechevallier said in French in a video message posted by the embassy on X. “I look forward to being part of that relationship, to meeting many of you and to continuing to build and strengthen ties between our two countries,” he said in a separate English video message.

The French embassy stated that Lechevallier — the former chief of staff of French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot — had on Tuesday “presented a copy of his credentials to Ambassador Monica Crowley, Chief of Protocol of the United States, marking the start of his mission.”

Lechevallier had been selected by French President Emmanuel Macron to replace the previous envoy, Laurent Bili, over the summer, but his appointment was thrown into limbo after a dispute stemming from the UN. On July 24, the United States was one of 10 countries to vote in the UN General Assembly against extending Volker Turk’s term as UN human rights chief, joining the ranks of North Korea, Russia, and Nicaragua, among others.

“The US used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore,” the French mission wrote in a post on X after the United States strongly opposed another term by Turk, who has repeatedly questioned US policies under President Donald Trump. The criticism was met with immediate backlash from Washington, with the US representative walking out of a UN Security Council meeting days later when France’s ambassador took the floor, in protest of the comments.

The French UN mission apologized in September for the critique, a mea culpa that was well-received by Washington and cleared the way for Lechevallier’s appointment.

© 2024 AFP

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Air raid sirens sounded throughout the night and into the day in Kyiv, where two people were killed and more than 30 others wounded, city authorities said. Two women aged 50 and 60 were killed, and dozens more people were wounded in an attack on a crowded market in the eastern city of Lozova. Two were wounded in the Moscow region after Ukraine launched its own large-scale drone attack. The strikes came after the Kremlin said it was willing to restart trilateral talks with Kyiv and Washington next month but dismissed new ideas brought by Witkoff that were developed with European countries and Ukraine.

In all, a dozen Ukrainian regions were hit overnight, including residential houses, energy sites, shops, cafes, and a monastery damaged in Kyiv, where strikes have intensified before winter sets in. All families and children were told to evacuate the frontline towns of Kramatorsk and neighboring Sloviansk in the east after a spate of attacks killed dozens of civilians. Zelensky said the onslaught began “almost immediately” after Witkoff and Putin held hours-long talks in Saint Petersburg, scoffing at US President Donald Trump’s envoy’s description of the Russian leader as a “humanitarian.” “This means there has been no real change in its attitude towards everything that is happening,” he added.

– Emboldened –

Ukraine has repeatedly called on its allies, including the United States, to supply it with advanced US-made Patriot interceptors to shoot down missiles and fast-moving attack drones. Zelensky warned of more strikes to come and suggested that Moscow—emboldened by an easing of sanctions pressure—was “clearly taking advantage of the slowdown in air-defense supplies from our partners,” in a clear nod to Washington.

In Brussels, NATO said it was allowing Ukraine to buy weapons through the alliance’s central procurement agency on a “case-by-case basis.” Trump sought an optimistic tone as his envoy returned from Russia and on Wednesday said negotiators were “maybe now the closest we’ve been” to ending the war. But in Kyiv and European capitals, hopes for a breakthrough were slim, with many worried the White House was siding with Moscow. Zelensky accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians in Kyiv, including with cluster munitions, which disperse in the air, showering dozens of smaller explosive devices or bomblets indiscriminately over a large area. Human Rights Watch in August reported an apparent increase in the use of the weapons, which are fired in rockets and missiles or dropped from aircraft. Doing so could be a war crime, it added.

Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what it hoped would be a swift attack to topple Zelensky and seize land. Instead, it has become bogged down in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, millions forced from their homes, and much of eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed.

– Talks –

In recent days, Trump has blocked new sanctions on Russia, struck a deal to buy Russian diesel, and called for the Ukrainian leader to be replaced. Zelensky has backed resuming trilateral talks—several rounds of which over the last 18 months have failed to move the sides closer to a deal. Russia is demanding Ukraine pull out of territory in the eastern Donetsk region that it still controls and wants sweeping political and military restrictions on the size of its army and Western alliances. Ukraine rejects the demands as tantamount to a capitulation that would leave it exposed to a fresh attack.

Moscow said that a summit between Trump, Putin, and China’s Xi was being prepared in China for next month, with Europeans and Ukraine worrying a deal could be struck over their heads. Witkoff called his talks with Putin “constructive” but “there is still important work left to do,” and technical-level talks would continue between all three sides. Putin has consistently rejected face-to-face talks with Zelensky and insisted Moscow intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine—either through a deal or on the battlefield.

– Genya SAVILOV

© 2024 AFP

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The Kremlin indicated it was “in principle” open to the resumption of trilateral talks between the two sides with the United States. But attacks did not let up in the wake of the visit, with Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko posting on social media that strikes had wounded 15 people in the Ukrainian capital, eight of whom needed hospitalization. He said in a separate post that strikes had damaged metro infrastructure at the Pivdenny Bridge, which officials said had restricted traffic between parts of the city.

Ukraine’s Airforce posted a warning in the early hours about “more ballistic missiles towards Kyiv” and instructed residents to stay in shelters. Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated that two people had been wounded during mostly intercepted barrages of 630 drones directed towards the region, with 163 of them approaching the capital city. Witkoff had flown to Russia from a meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo on Tuesday, which was aimed at smoothing over a bitter rift between Trump and the Ukrainian leader.

Witkoff praised Putin as a “humanitarian” for freeing US citizen Stephen Hubbard, but the Kremlin warned after the meeting that while Moscow was “in principle” willing to restart talks, there was little “substance” in Ukrainian and European peace proposals the US diplomat had delivered. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also took part in the talks with Putin remotely. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Russia was “in principle, ready to resume” trilateral talks in mid-November — after the US midterm elections — and that the Kremlin wanted them to focus on post-war security.

Ushakov said Witkoff briefed Putin on “some new aspects in the approaches of the Europeans and Kyiv” from the Oslo meeting, adding though that “there wasn’t really much substance in them.” A summit between Putin, Trump, and China’s Xi Jinping was also being prepared in China’s Shenzhen for next month, Ushakov said, calling it “the first such meeting in history.” During their three-hour meeting, Witkoff praised Putin for granting Trump’s request to free Hubbard, a retired English teacher in his 70s who had always denied the charges he was a “mercenary” fighting for Ukraine.

“You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian — you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” Witkoff said. Witkoff stated on social media that the talks with Putin were “constructive” but that “there is still important work left to do.” Discussions would continue between the US, Ukraine, and Russia at the technical level, he added. Trump returned to power in January 2025 promising to end the war in 24 hours — but more than a year of US-led talks have failed to produce a breakthrough, with tens of thousands killed.

In recent days, a frustrated Trump has once again pivoted away from Ukraine and back to Putin, trumpeting what he said was a deal for Russia to sell diesel and reduce prices sent soaring by his Iran war. Trump also delayed the imposition of sanctions on Russia’s war machine — a decision he defended on Wednesday as necessary to secure Hubbard’s release. “If you would’ve put those sanctions on… you could forget about him. You’d never see him again,” Trump told reporters at the White House. The US envoy told Putin that Washington was “grateful” for the diesel deal, which sparked outrage in Kyiv and across Europe.

In Ukraine, Zelensky said that Kyiv also backed resuming trilateral talks. “The American side is proposing to organize this meeting as soon as possible. We are in favor of it,” he told journalists. Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has consistently rejected face-to-face talks with Zelensky and insisted Moscow intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine. Witkoff’s ninth meeting with Putin came as Russia continued to strike Ukrainian cities ahead of winter. Kyiv said Russian attacks killed at least four people on Wednesday — including two in the capital and an elderly couple in the eastern Kharkiv region. Russian occupation authorities in the Lugansk region, meanwhile, said a Ukrainian drone strike on a phone company had killed two people.

burs-dk/ceg/tc

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Attacks did not let up overnight, with Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko posting on social media that missile strikes had wounded six people in the capital, four of whom needed hospitalization. Ukraine’s Airforce posted a warning in the early hours of “more ballistic missiles towards Kyiv” and instructed residents to stay in shelters. Russian authorities also said they had intercepted drones during the night, including more than 160 flying towards Moscow. Witkoff had flown to Russia from a meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo on Tuesday, which was aimed at smoothing over a bitter rift between Trump and the Ukrainian leader. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also took part in the talks with Putin remotely.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Russia was “in principle, ready to resume” trilateral talks in mid-November — after crucial US midterm elections — and that the Kremlin wanted them to focus on post-war security. Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has consistently rejected face-to-face talks with Zelensky and insisted Moscow intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine. Ushakov said Witkoff briefed Putin on “some new aspects in the approaches of the Europeans and Kyiv” from the Oslo meeting, adding though that “there wasn’t really much substance in them.” A summit between Putin, Trump, and China’s Xi Jinping was also being prepared in China’s Shenzhen for next month, Ushakov said, calling it “the first such meeting in history.”

During their three-hour meeting, Witkoff praised Putin for granting Trump’s request to free Hubbard, a retired English teacher in his 70s who had always denied the charges he was a “mercenary” fighting for Ukraine. “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian — you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” Witkoff said. Witkoff said on social media that the talks with Putin were “constructive,” but that “there is still important work left to do.” Discussions would continue between the US, Ukraine, and Russia at the technical level, he added. Trump returned to power in January 2025 promising to end the war in 24 hours — but more than a year of US-led talks have failed to produce a breakthrough, with tens of thousands killed.

In recent days, a frustrated Trump has once again pivoted away from Ukraine and back to Putin, trumpeting what he said was a deal for Russia to sell diesel and reduce prices sent soaring by his Iran war. Trump also delayed the imposition of sanctions on Russia’s war machine — a decision he defended on Wednesday as necessary to secure Hubbard’s release. “If you would’ve put those sanctions on… you could forget about him. You’d never see him again,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

In Ukraine, Zelensky said that Kyiv also backed resuming trilateral talks. “The American side is proposing to organize this meeting as soon as possible. We are in favour of it,” he told journalists. Witkoff’s ninth meeting with Putin came as Russia continued to strike Ukrainian cities ahead of winter. Kyiv said Russian attacks killed at least four people on Wednesday — including two in the capital and an elderly couple in the eastern Kharkiv region. Russian occupation authorities in the Lugansk region, meanwhile, said a Ukrainian drone strike on a phone company had killed two people. The Witkoff-Zelensky meeting on Tuesday followed days of friction between Washington and Kyiv, and calls from Trump for the Ukrainian leader to be replaced. Witkoff told Putin he saw “some degree of momentum” in the US-led talks. The US envoy also told Putin that Washington was “grateful” for the diesel deal, which sparked outrage in Kyiv and across Europe. The deal has been seen as a way to try to lower fuel prices for American consumers ahead of the US midterms, in which Trump’s Republicans could lose control of Congress.

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But the Kremlin warned after Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in Saint Petersburg that there was little “substance” in the Ukrainian and European peace proposals that the US diplomat brought with him. Witkoff had flown to Russia from a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo on Tuesday, which was aimed at smoothing over a bitter rift between Zelensky and Trump. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also took part in the talks with Putin remotely.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters, including AFP, that Russia was “in principle, ready to resume” the trilateral talks in mid-November — after crucial US midterm elections — and that the Kremlin wanted them to focus on post-war security. Ushakov said Witkoff briefed Putin on “some new aspects in the approaches of the Europeans and Kyiv” from the Oslo meeting, adding though that “there wasn’t really much substance in them.” A summit between Putin, Trump, and China’s Xi Jinping was also being prepared in China’s Shenzhen for next month, Ushakov said, calling it “the first such meeting in history.”

– ‘Work left to do’ –

During their three-hour meeting, Witkoff praised Putin for granting Trump’s request to free Hubbard, a retired English teacher in his 70s who had always denied the charges he was a “mercenary” fighting for Ukraine. “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian — you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that,” Witkoff said. Witkoff said on social media afterward that the Putin talks were “constructive” but that “there is still important work left to do.” Discussions would continue between the US, Ukraine, and Russia at the technical level, he added.

Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has consistently rejected face-to-face talks with Zelensky and insisted Moscow intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine. Trump came to power in January 2025 promising to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours — but over a year of US-led talks have failed to produce a breakthrough, with tens of thousands killed.

In recent days a frustrated Trump has once again pivoted away from Ukraine and back to Putin, trumpeting what he said was a deal for Russia to sell diesel and reduce prices sent soaring by his Iran war. Trump also delayed the imposition of sanctions on Russia’s war machine — a decision he defended on Wednesday as necessary to secure Hubbard’s release. “If you would’ve put those sanctions on… you could forget about him. You’d never see him again,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

– Russian strikes kill four –

Witkoff’s ninth meeting with Putin came as Russia continued to pound Ukrainian cities ahead of winter. Kyiv said Russian strikes killed at least four people — including two in the capital and an elderly couple in the eastern Kharkiv region. Russian occupation authorities in the Lugansk region, meanwhile, said a Ukrainian drone strike on a phone company had killed two people. In Ukraine, Zelensky said that Kyiv backed resuming trilateral talks. “The American side is proposing to organize this meeting as soon as possible. We are in favour of it,” he told journalists.

The Witkoff-Zelensky meeting Tuesday followed days of friction between Washington and Kyiv, and calls from Trump for the Ukrainian leader to be replaced. Witkoff told Putin he saw “some degree of momentum” in the US-led talks after meeting Zelensky in Oslo. The US envoy also told Putin that Washington was “grateful” for the diesel deal, which sparked outrage in Kyiv and across Europe. The deal has been seen as a way to try to lower fuel prices for American consumers ahead of the US midterms, in which Trump’s Republicans could lose control of Congress.

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Putin held over three hours of talks with Witkoff in his home city of Saint Petersburg, a day after what the US official described as a “productive” meeting with Ukraine’s Zelensky in Norway. Witkoff shared on social media afterward that the talks were “constructive” but noted that “there is still important work left to do,” with discussions set to continue at the technical level between the US, Ukraine, and Russia. As Witkoff arrived in Russia, Moscow released a US citizen, Stephen Hubbard, and stated it would soon begin diesel shipments to America. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also participated in the talks with Putin remotely.

Over a year of US-led negotiations aimed at ending the Ukraine war, which Russia launched in 2022, have not yet yielded a breakthrough, resulting in tens of thousands of fatalities. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov informed reporters, including AFP, that Witkoff briefed Putin on “some new aspects in the approaches of the Europeans and Kyiv” from the Oslo meeting. However, he added that “there wasn’t really much substance in them.” Putin has consistently rejected direct talks with Zelensky and insisted that Moscow intends to seize the remainder of eastern Ukraine.

Ushakov also mentioned that a “first-ever” China-US-Russia meeting was “being prepared” in China, though he did not specify what the leaders would discuss. Kyiv and its European allies have expressed concerns that the White House might strike a deal without their involvement. Witkoff conducted his ninth meeting with Putin amid ongoing Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities in anticipation of winter and amid a bitter feud between Trump and Zelensky. The US envoy emphasized his desire to resume trilateral talks, a stance the Kremlin later agreed with.

Zelensky expressed Kyiv’s support for resuming trilateral discussions, telling journalists: “We have learned that Russia … is favourable to a trilateral meeting between our teams. The American side is proposing to organize this meeting as soon as possible. We are in favour of it.” Ushakov indicated that the talks would re-open in mid-November, with the Kremlin wishing to focus on post-war security.

As Witkoff arrived in Saint Petersburg, Kyiv reported that Russian strikes killed at least four people, including two in the capital and an elderly couple in the eastern Kharkiv region. Additionally, Russian occupation authorities in the Lugansk region claimed that a Ukrainian drone strike on a phone company resulted in two fatalities.

Witkoff conveyed to Putin that he perceived “some degree of momentum” in the US-led talks after meeting Zelensky. The Witkoff-Zelensky meeting followed days of friction between Washington and Kyiv and calls from Trump for the Ukrainian leader to be replaced. Witkoff also expressed Washington’s “gratitude” for a diesel deal, which involved easing US sanctions on Moscow to allow Russian fuel to flow to the United States, causing outrage in Kyiv and across Europe. This arrangement has been viewed as a measure to mitigate fuel prices for American consumers as Trump’s Republican Party approaches challenging midterm elections next month.

Washington expressed interest in further “business and economic cooperation” with Russia when the war concludes. Witkoff noted, “We even talk about it now openly with the Ukrainians to give them some sort of sense about what the possibilities will be when this whole conflict is over.” Meanwhile, Kyiv has urged Western nations to intensify pressure on Moscow and refrain from lifting sanctions. Prior to the talks, Putin announced the release of Stephen Hubbard, an American who had been captured by Russian forces in Ukraine in 2022 and sentenced to nearly seven years in prison. Trump had requested that the Russian leader free Hubbard, a retired English teacher in his 70s, who has consistently denied the allegations of being a “mercenary” fighting for Ukraine.

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As Witkoff touched down in Putin’s home city, Russia announced it would soon begin shipments of diesel to the United States under a deal with Trump, and that it had freed a US citizen — Stephen Hubbard — held by Moscow since the start of the war on allegations of fighting as a “mercenary” for Ukraine. “We’ve brought some papers. It’s really some ideas, some sort of peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and you’ll read that at your leisure,” Witkoff — Trump’s business partner and envoy — told Putin in Saint Petersburg’s Konstantinovsky Palace. Putin thanked Trump for his efforts to resolve the war and said he was eager to be informed about the US meeting with Zelensky. The longtime Russian leader has repeatedly refused to hold face-to-face talks with Zelensky and said that Moscow intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine. Witkoff told Putin he hoped trilateral talks can resume. “I’m hoping that you might consider that as a next step in the peace process so we can begin to have technical teams discussing what are those next steps,” he told the Russian leader.

Putin thanked Trump for his “attention” to the conflict and said the US leader had “insisted that it was necessary to end this conflict” in their last phone call. Russia’s war against Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides, as well as thousands of civilians. As Witkoff arrived in Saint Petersburg, Kyiv said Moscow’s strikes killed at least four people — including two in the capital and an elderly couple in the eastern Kharkiv region.

Meeting Putin, Witkoff described his talks with Zelensky as “productive.” “I think there’s some degree of momentum and I hope that today can be another step forward in the peace process and discussing how we resolve the Ukrainian conflict,” he said. Zelensky on Tuesday thanked Washington for the resumption of US intelligence sharing on Russian strikes. The Witkoff-Zelensky meeting in Norway followed days of friction between Washington and Kyiv, with Zelensky urging the US not to side with Russia and Trump calling for the Ukrainian leader to be replaced. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is also due to participate in Wednesday’s talks with Putin remotely.

US-led talks on the conflict have so far not led to a breakthrough, and Moscow insists it intends to press on with its offensive. Witkoff also told Putin that Washington was “grateful” for a diesel deal — met with astonishment in Kyiv and across Europe — that saw US sanctions on Moscow eased to allow Russian fuel to flow to the United States. The deal has been seen as a way to try to lower fuel prices for American consumers ahead of testing midterm elections in the US next month. Washington was interested in further “business and economic cooperation” with Russia when the war ends, Witkoff said. “We even talk about it now openly with the Ukrainians to give them some sort of sense about what the possibilities will be when this whole conflict is over,” he said. Kyiv has pleaded with Western countries to put more pressure on Moscow and not lift sanctions.

Ahead of the talks, Putin announced that Stephen Hubbard, an American taken captive by Russian forces in Ukraine in 2022 and later sentenced to almost seven years in prison, had been freed. Trump had asked the Russian leader to free Hubbard, a retired English teacher in his 70s who had always denied the charges he was a “mercenary” fighting for Ukraine. Witkoff hailed the move and called Putin a “humanitarian.” Trump later said that Hubbard was on his way to the United States and that the release had not been part of a swap deal.

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