MOSCOW, Aug. 6 (Reuters) – US envoy Steve Witkov arrived in Moscow on Wednesday and arrived on his final mission to seek a breakthrough in the Ukrainian war two days before President Donald Trump concludes the deadline set for Russia to agree to peace or face new sanctions.
Witkov was greeted by Kiril Dmitriev, Russian investment envoy and head of the Sovereign Wealth Fund. State media showed the two men walking together in the park near the Kremlin.
Trump is increasingly unhappy with Putin at the lack of progress towards a peace deal in Ukraine, and has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russia’s exports.
He is putting particular pressure on India, a large Russian oil buyer, along with China. The Kremlin says it is a threat to be punished by a country that trade with Russia is illegal.
Putin believes he is winning the war and believes his military goals will take priority over his desire to improve relations with the United States, so three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters.
“Witkov’s visit is a lasting effort to find a solution that saves both faces. But I don’t think there’s anything like a compromise between the two,” said Gerhard Mangot, an Austrian analyst and a member of a group of Western scholars and journalists who have met with Putin regularly over the years.
“Russia would argue that it is ready to launch a ceasefire, but under conditions already formulated for the past two or three years (only),” he said in a telephone interview.
“Trump will be pressured to do what he has announced — all countries that buy oil and gas, and perhaps uranium, will also raise tariffs from Russia.”
Real estate billionaire Witkov has held several long meetings with Putin. He had no diplomatic experience before joining Trump’s team in January, but is also tasked with negotiating a crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, calling for a ceasefire in the Ukrainian and Gaza wars.
Critics portrayed him from his depths when he was pitched in head-to-head negotiations with Russian top leader Putin for the past 25 years. On his final visit in April, Witkov was not accompanied by a diplomat or aide – a lonely figure cut when he sat at a table from Putin, Dmitriev, aide to foreign policy in the Kremlin.
Critics sometimes accused Witkov of reflecting the Kremlin story. In an interview with journalist Tucker Carlsson in March, for example, Witkov said there was no reason for Russia to try to absorb Ukraine or bite its territory, and it was “silly” to put Putin in his desire to send troops marching across Europe.
Many Ukraine and its European allies have opposed it. Putin has denied the design of NATO territory, and Moscow has repeatedly cast accusations such as evidence of European hostility and “last phobia.”
(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski in Moscow, Editing by Mark Trevelyan in London, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
