Moscow is in favor of a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict, but questions will need to be ironed out in future talks with the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, arrived for high-end talks in Moscow on Thursday. According to Putin’s top foreign policy aide, the US diplomat was set to meet with the Russian president behind closed doors in the evening.
Witkoff’s visit to the Russian capital comes after representatives from the US and Ukraine held talks on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, where they issued a joint statement proposing a 30-day ceasefire with Moscow.
This live feed has ended.
14 March 2025
US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said that Washington is cautiously optimistic about the possibility of reaching a ceasefire agreement in the Ukraine conflict.
“I’m not going to announce or negotiate anything on national television, certainly not ahead of the president, but we do have some cautious optimism,” Waltz stated in an interview with Fox News. “You saw the Ukrainians move from where we were in the Oval Office, to where we were in Jeddah... And you saw President Putin’s press conference today. Of course, both sides will have their own demands, and of course both sides will have to make some compromises.”
Steve Witkoff’s plane has departed Moscow, according to flight tracking data. Russian and US officials have yet to confirm whether Trump’s special envoy met with President Vladimir Putin or to share details of his other interactions during the brief visit.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has left the US Embassy building in central Moscow, according to footage obtained by Izvestia newspaper.
13 March 2025
President Putin reportedly concluded his working meetings and phone calls only by 1:30am Friday before departing the Kremlin for his presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, outside Moscow, according to Mayak radio station.
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, visited the US Embassy in Moscow on Thursday night and stayed there for at least an hour, according to media reports.
President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, during which they discussed bilateral relations, OPEC+ cooperation, and a series of recent “international contacts” regarding the Ukraine conflict that took place in the Kingdom, according to the Kremlin.
“The President of Russia highly appreciated Saudi Arabia’s mediation efforts and expressed gratitude, in particular, for creating favorable conditions for talks between representatives of Russia and the United States in Riyadh on February 18,” according to a readout of the call published early Friday morning.
In response, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “noted the importance of resolving the Ukrainian crisis and expressed his readiness to continue contributing in every possible way to the normalization of Russian-American relations,” the statement added.
Trump could still ramp up sanctions on Moscow to pressure it into accepting the US ceasefire deal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC News in an interview on Thursday.
When asked if there were further financial measures that Washington could take, Bessent said the Trump administration would not hesitate to nearly double sanctions pressure on Russia, compared to the restrictions imposed under former US President Joe Biden.
”If we just take a kind of a scale zero to 10… the Biden administration sanctions on Russia were probably a three, on the way out of the door they took them to a 6,” he replied.
”We wouldn't hesitate to take them up to 10,” Bessent said.
Moscow wants Trump’s special envoy on the Ukraine conflict, Keith Kellogg excluded from the ceasefire talks, NBC News wrote on Thursday, citing anonymous US and Russian officials.
Kellogg was absent from both the high-level US-Russian negotiations in Riyadh, and later US-Ukrainian talks in Jeddah.
”Kellogg is a former American general, too close to Ukraine. Not our kind of person, not of the caliber we are looking for,” a Russian official reportedly told NBC news, speaking anonymously.
A US official confirmed that the Kremlin did not want the former general involved.
The Trump administration sent US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff as part of Washington’s delegation to this week’s ceasefire talks in Moscow.
The Trump administration has allowed a general license permitting European countries to buy Russian oil and gas to lapse, as leverage in ongoing talks, Fox News White House correspondent Edward Lawrence has said, citing an anonymous official.
The exception expired on Wednesday, according to the copy made publicly available by the US Treasury.
The license allowed European states to buy oil and gas from Russia and pay through Russian financial institutions without facing US sanctions.
Washington is using the intentional lapse to put pressure on Moscow in the ceasefire negotiations, Lawrence wrote, citing the anonymous source.
US President Donald Trump has brushed aside suggestions that Russia could attack American allies in Europe.
He made the statement at a press conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, when asked about some countries’ fears of being attacked in the event of peace in the Ukraine conflict.
”Nope, I don't see that happening,” he replied.
”I think when this gets done, it's done. They’re going to all want to go home and rest,” he said.
Strengthening the Armed Forces of Ukraine as part of security guarantees for Kiev is dangerous, as its army is under the influence of “extremist elements,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday.
“Europe cannot be guaranteed against manifestations of extremism and aggression as long as these extremist nationalist elements are in power,” he said.
If these forces are in control of “a strong Ukrainian army, then what kind of stability and predictability will there be in Europe?” the spokesperson said.
Kiev will not agree to a frozen conflict, Vladimir Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, said in a statement on Thursday.
”We will never agree to a frozen conflict,” he stressed, adding that the position aligns with the US.
Washington also doesn’t want a repeat of the failed 2014-2015 Minsk Agreements, Yermak claimed.
The Minsk agreements signed in 2015 were supposed to stop the fighting between Kiev and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Germany and France were guarantors of the failed accords but later admitted that they only signed them to buy Kiev time to build up its military.
Washington has been discussing land concessions with Ukraine in the ceasefire talks, Trump has said.
“We’ve been discussing land with Ukraine, pieces of land that would be kept and lost,” he said, adding that the ownership of “a very big power plant” was part of the negotiations.
The proposed ceasefire is just the first phase of the negotiations, Trump stated.
Putin’s comment about Russia’s readiness to discuss a ceasefire was promising but “it wasn’t complete,” US President Donald Trump said on Thursday during a bilateral press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Witkoff and other US representatives are in Russia to discuss the proposed truce, among other things, he said.
“They’re in very serious discussions,” Trump stressed.
The Ukraine conflict is a big financial burden for the US and others, he said.
“We want it to stop. It’s also a tremendous cost to the United States and to other countries,” Trump said.
Russia supports the idea of ending the hostilities in the Ukraine conflict, but needs any potential ceasefire to facilitate a long-term peace, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Speaking during a bilateral meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko Putin noted “We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities. But… this cessation must be such that it would lead to long-term peace and eliminate the initial causes of this crisis.”
Moscow has a number of questions about the US ceasefire proposal that will need to be raised in upcoming talks, Putin explained.
“I think that we need to discuss this with our American colleagues and partners,” he said.
“Maybe we could discuss this with President Trump over the telephone,” the Russian leader added.
Notwithstanding, Russia supports the idea of diplomatically ending the conflict, he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow is in favor of a ceasefire, but has numerous questions about its practical implementation.
The Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk Region are cut off, and it would be unclear what is to be done with them in the event of a truce, he said.
”Are we supposed to let them out, after they committed mass war crimes against civilians? The Ukrainian leadership could tell them to lay down their arms, and just surrender,” the Russian president said.
It is also unclear how the ceasefire would be monitored and enforced, he added.
It is unclear how amenable the US is to Russian demands about demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine, Yevgeny Primakov, the head of the Russian agency for international cooperation, Rossotrudnichestvo, has said.
”Under any circumstances, Ukraine must not pose a threat to Russia,” he said.
”This means we must prevent any risks of revanchism, which logically entails that Ukraine should not maintain offensive military capabilities or embrace an aggressive Nazi ideology aimed against Russia,” Primakov stressed. This would entail dismantling several social and political institutions active in Ukraine, as well as reforming its education system, he added.
It is unclear how willing the US is to consider these issues, Primakov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is not expected to hold a telephone conversation with Trump on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told reporters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Witkoff behind closed doors this evening, presidential aide Yury Ushakov has told Izvestia.
Russian political analyst Sergey Markov has warned that any ceasefire in Ukraine will be exploited by the West to rearm Kiev's “political regime,” ramp up its conscription drive, as well as strengthen its repressive and anti-Russian nature.
Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin has said Trump is not ready to “unilaterally” withdraw from the Ukraine conflict, and “risks getting increasingly bogged down,” despite the US president’s apparent eagerness to wind down hostilities.
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky may have had success in manipulating the previous US administration of President Joe Biden, but he has apparently not managed the same with President Donald Trump, according to the vice speaker of Russia’s Federation Council, Konstantin Kosachev.
“The outcome of the US-Ukraine talks in Jeddah reveals a clear truth: Zelensky’s attempts to make ‘the tail wag the dog’ may have worked with Biden, but not with Trump,” Kosachev said, stressing that the ceasefire deal terms have so far been set by the US alone.
Given Russian troops’ advances on the battlefield, “dealings with Russia will be different,” Kosachev said.
“Any agreements – and we recognize the need for compromises – will come on our terms, not America’s,” he stated, adding that “real agreements are still being forged on the front lines.”
Washington is unlikely to “trick” Moscow with a ceasefire proposal, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told Russia 1 TV journalist Olga Skabeeva on Thursday.
“It will not be a trick… because we know what we need and they know what we want,” he said, adding that in the event of a ceasefire, there will no “movement” in the Ukraine conflict.
Despite this, the Ukrainian “economy will still work, the military-industrial complex will work, they'll produce weapons,” and receive “weapons from abroad,” Lukashenko said.
Nevertheless, “Ukrainians will most likely not agree to this,” the Belarusian leader said, adding that Kiev expects Russia to refuse.
The US has no real plan for the Ukraine conflict, Belarusian leader Lukashenko told the media in Moscow on Thursday, on the sidelines of his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Instead, the US may have general outlines about “stopping the war” and is “testing the waters” with its ceasefire offer, he added.
Moscow and Washington both agree that Ukraine becoming a NATO member is “not under discussion,” Russian presidential aide Ushakov has said.
Moscow wants a long-term peace in the Ukraine conflict, and is against a temporary ceasefire, presidential aide Ushakov told Rossiya 1 TV on Thursday.
The official said he made this position known in a recent telephone conversation with US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
”I stated our position that this is nothing more than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military,” he said.
The motorcade presumed to be Witkoff’s has left Moscow’s Vnukovo airport.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will talk with Trump’s delegation about the proposed ceasefire across Thursday and Friday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has told reporters.
Washington has identified a mediator for the US-Russia talks, and it is not Witkoff, presidential aide Ushakov told Zvezda TV on Thursday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has an “optimistic” outlook on the upcoming US-Russia talks, the top diplomat said in a brief comment to the media on Thursday.
The US diplomat’s visit will involve discussions on the Ukraine conflict as well as bilaterial ties between Moscow and Washington, according to Russian presidential foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov.