This will be the third meeting between Witkov and Putin as Trump seeks a ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump has been unhappy with the lack of progress in negotiations over the past few weeks, and at one point he said he was “offended” about Putin’s comments in Ukraine.
If the ceasefire did not reach by the end of the month, Trump could have made progress by either pushing forward with additional sanctions against Russia through enforcement, or by asking Congress to pass a new sanctions law, a source familiar with the matter told Axios.
“We will soon know enough about the fact that Russia is serious about peace, not months but weeks, and we hope they are,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week on the sidelines at the NATO summit in Brussels.
Ukraine agreed to Trump’s proposal for an unconditional ceasefire and then agreed to a small maritime ceasefire plan, but Russia made a series of new demands, including lifting US sanctions.
“We are making progress and hopefully we are relatively close to getting a contract to stop the fight between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump told cabinet meeting Thursday.
The US and Russia enacted a prisoner exchange contract on Thursday. This included the release of Ksenia Karelina, a dual citizen of the US and Russia.
Negotiations over the transaction were the result of a previous meeting between Witkov and Putin in March.
Trump said he appreciated Putin’s decision to release Karelina. He told Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), that he told him she was the girlfriend of the UFC fighter, and asked him to help free her.
US and Russian diplomats met again in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss normalizing relations between the countries.
A State Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment in the evening on Witkov’s trip.
MNA/