President Putin met with US Special Presidential Envoy – Kremlin says will announce venue for Putin-Trump meeting later

Photo: Kremlin.ru

The President of Russia met in the Kremlin with Special Envoy of the President of the United States of America Steve Witkoff.

The Kremlin will be able to give a more detailed statement on the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff after the latter reports on the outcome of the talks to US President Donald Trump, Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov said on Wednesday, TASS quotes.

Putin received Witkoff in the Kremlin. After the meeting, Ushakov said that Witkoff had received some signals on the Ukrainian issue, and in turn, reciprocal signals had been received from US President Donald Trump.

Commentary by Aide to the President of Russia Yury Ushakov on Vladimir Putin’s meeting with US President’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff:

"This meeting took place in a business-like atmosphere and was quite constructive. Both sides can be satisfied with the outcomes of this conversation. The discussion focused on matters dealing with future efforts to work together in the context of resolving the Ukraine crisis. Once again, it was noted that Russia-US relations could be placed on a totally different, mutually beneficial footing, which would be in stark contrast with the way these relations have evolved in recent years.

Regarding the Ukraine agenda, at the proposal of the United States, there was a principled agreement to hold a top-level bilateral meeting in the coming days, which means a meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

Together with our American colleagues, we are about to start working on the specific parameters of this meeting and its venue. Basically, the venue has also been coordinated, and we will communicate on this point a little later.

As for the option of holding a trilateral meeting, which for some reason became a subject of speculation yesterday in Washington, the US representative simply mentioned it during the meeting at the Kremlin. However, there was no specific discussion on this topic. Russia has not commented on this option in any way. Our suggestion primarily focuses on preparing for a bilateral meeting with Donald Trump. It is our belief that ensuring this meeting is a success and yields tangible results is what matters most.

Everyone already knows that Donald Trump spoke to several of his European partners on the phone to discuss these issues after Steve Witkoff reported back to him. It is worth noting in this regard that we have also been updating our close partners and friends through the relevant communication channels to inform them about the topics discussed during the meeting with Steve Witkoff.

Next week was suggested as a possible timeframe [for holding the meeting], but since the effort to prepare for this important event is only just beginning for both parties, it is hard to say how long the preparations will take. That said, the option of holding this meeting sometime next week was on the table, and we hold quite a positive view in this regard."

The meeting between President Putin and Steve Witkoff was also attended by Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Special Presidential Envoy for Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries.

The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was very productive, and great progress was achieved, head of the Washington administration Donald Trump said.

"My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come," he said on Truth Social.

A White House official earlier told reporters that the meeting between Putin and Witkoff, in the opinion of the Washington administration, went well, and Russia demonstrated interest in continuing cooperation with the United States, TASS quotes. However, the official said that Washington still plans to impose secondary anti-Russian sanctions on Friday, August 8.

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