Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed meeting US President Donald Trump in China, as he welcomed Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff for talks in St Petersburg on Wednesday, Russian state television said, according to Reuters and Geo News.
Putin also offered to discuss restoring economic cooperation between Moscow and Washington, state TV said. The Kremlin has earlier raised the possibility that Putin, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could hold three-way talks during an Apec summit in China next month.
A goodwill gesture first
The meeting, the ninth in-person encounter between Witkoff and Putin, opened with a gesture from Moscow: the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired US school teacher held in Russia. Putin told Witkoff that Hubbard was waiting at the airport to fly home with him, and Witkoff thanked him.
Hubbard was first detained in April 2022 and was later sentenced to six years and 10 months on mercenary charges. His family and his US-based lawyer question the case, and he denies the charges, Reuters reported. Trump said on Tuesday that he had asked Putin to free him.
Witkoff flew into Russia’s second city on Wednesday morning and was met at Pulkovo Airport by Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s adviser for international economic cooperation, according to Dawn, citing news agencies. A US official told AFP that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would take part in the meeting virtually.
After Oslo
Witkoff arrived a day after what a US official called “constructive” talks in Oslo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the leaders of Finland and Norway, and European and Nato representatives. The US official said Ukraine brought “new ideas and proposals” and that the talks made “meaningful progress” towards a coordinated approach to Russia. They covered security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-war economic plan and a wider European security architecture, the official said, and Witkoff would try to “create a pathway towards direct trilateral and broader multilateral negotiations”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Oslo meeting was positive and that Witkoff would take the ideas to Russia. “He will now, armed with those ideas, be able to go to St Petersburg and share them with the Russian side, and let’s see if we can make some progress,” he said in India.
Zelensky has said he hopes the key questions on how to end the war can be discussed at a three-way meeting with Putin and Trump. The Kremlin has repeatedly said any Putin-Zelensky meeting would have to be carefully prepared by aides first, and that much of the groundwork for an overall deal would have to be in place.
Strained ties with Kyiv
The talks come as Kyiv and its allies worry that Washington is stepping back from Ukraine. Relations have soured since Trump announced a deal earlier this month for the US to import Russian diesel to ease fuel prices ahead of November’s elections. Ukraine has complained of disruption to some intelligence sharing and to its use of the Starshield military satellite system, although Zelensky said the Oslo meeting reached an understanding to resolve those problems.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that billionaire Elon Musk had last week ordered the slowdown of the military-grade version of SpaceX’s Starlink that Ukraine uses to track Russian ballistic missile strikes. Musk has said that any such decision is taken by the US military or the president, and Trump has said he was not responsible. Rubio repeated that Washington had not pulled back Kyiv’s access to Starlink and said Trump “has nothing to do” with decisions made by Starlink, Starshield and Musk.
Trump, who has rebuked Zelensky and suggested he should be replaced, said on Tuesday that “he’s going to have to want to make a deal, because I don’t think his people are going to stand for it any longer”. Zelensky replied that Ukraine must be at the table for any talks about its future.
No sign of a shift
Putin has shown few signs of softening the war aims he has stated, which include full Russian control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine and no Nato membership for Kyiv, Reuters noted. The talks come more than two years after Trump promised in his election campaign to end the war within 24 hours.
Why it matters
The release of Hubbard gives Washington a visible result, and Putin’s offer of a meeting in China puts a possible leaders’ summit on the table. But Kyiv’s fear of being sidelined remains, and Moscow has not shifted on its core demands. The next days will show whether Witkoff’s trip leads to the trilateral talks he is seeking or only to another round of diplomacy without a settlement. Read our earlier report on Witkoff’s trip to Russia after the Oslo talks.
This article draws on reporting by Reuters, Geo News, Dawn, AFP and The Express Tribune.
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