Trump envoy meets Putin

hours after Moscow killed Russian general

Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin on Friday April 25, 2025, in the Kremlin for high-stakes peace talks.

According to The Guardian, this came hours after a senior Russian military official was killed in a car explosion near Moscow.

Trump has played up Witkoff’s visit, his fourth to Russia in recent months, claiming a deal on ending the war in Ukraine was within reach.

“The next few days are going to be very important.

“Meetings are taking place right now,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.

“I think we’re going to make a deal … I think we’re getting very close,” he added.

But no apparent breakthrough was reached on Friday.

Putin’s senior aide Yuri Ushakov, who was present at the talks, said the discussions were “constructive and quite useful”.

He also noted that the two sides had “narrowed differences”.

In comments to journalists, Ushakov said the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine had also been discussed.

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Witkoff had left Moscow carrying a message for Trump.

There was no immediate comment from Witkoff on the outcome of the meeting.

At the start of the talks, the Kremlin published a short clip showing Putin and Witkoff, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries in the Kremlin.

This was before they sat down on opposite sides of a white oval table to start their meeting behind closed doors.

Both Peskov and Witkoff hold no formal diplomatic credentials.

Putin was flanked in the meeting by Ushakov and his investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

Three hours later, Witkoff’s car was seen leaving the Kremlin.

Although Trump has repeatedly claimed he was close to ending the war, now in its fourth year, his efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine have so far yielded little results.

He claims that the peace deal has been stalled by Moscow’s hardline demands.

Reporters on Friday published two sets of documents outlining the US and Ukrainian proposals for ending the war.

The report revealed significant differences on issues ranging from territorial concessions to sanctions.

It remains unclear whether Moscow, which has consistently rejected an immediate ceasefire, would agree to the US proposal.

This is despite the major concessions it offers the Kremlin, including allowing it to retain territory it has captured.

Trump admitted on Friday that the talks were “very fragile”.

He also said he had no deadline for achieving peace, having previously claimed he could end the war “in 24 hours”.

In an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, Trump also said that “Crimea will stay with Russia”.

This stands as the latest example of the US leader putting pressure on Ukraine to make concessions to end the war while it remains under siege.

Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, later insisted the territory is “the property of the Ukrainian people”.

“Our position is unchanged,” he told reporters in Kyiv.

“The constitution of Ukraine says that all the temporarily occupied territories … belong to Ukraine.”

Witkoff’s visit came hours after a senior Russian general was blown up outside his apartment.

The Guardian reports that this incident appears to have been the latest Ukrainian operation deep inside Russian territory.

The Russian authorities named the officer as Lt Gen Yaroslav Moskalik, the deputy head of the main operations directorate of the general staff of the Russian armed forces.

The blast was similar in nature to previous attacks on Russians that were later claimed by Ukraine.

The apparent Ukrainian assassination is unlikely to sit well with the Trump administration.

Trump’s administration has been desperate to show tangible progress on peace before Trump’s 100th day in office next week.

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