President Donald Trump’s envoys were to meet Thursday with Ukrainian negotiators for the third time in two weeks to press his plan to end the war as his administration eased economic pressure on Russia.
Two days after the envoys met Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Treasury Department partially suspended measures that Trump had announced in October when he finally vowed to get tough on Moscow.
The Treasury Department suspended until at least April 29 economic sanctions against Lukoil-branded gas stations outside of Russia.
A ban remains on place to prevent the money from flowing back to Russia, which has been under sweeping US and EU sanctions since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump’s sanctions had been one of the most concrete means to pressure Russia, which European diplomats accuse of trying to avoid pressure by pursuing negotiations.
Easing isolation
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s business partner-turned-roving global ambassador, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, will meet in the Miami area for dinner late Thursday with the top Ukrainian negotiator, Rustem Umerov, a US official said.
The gathering, which will be closed to the press, came two days after the Trump duo met with Putin for five hours, stretching into the early morning, in Moscow.
Trump said the envoys had a “reasonably good meeting” with Putin.
Pressed on whether Witkoff and Kushner got any sense that Putin genuinely wanted to halt Russia’s nearly four-yearinvasion, Trump replied: “He would like to end the war. That was their impression.” But Putin showed no public signs of budging, as Russia makes slow but steady progress seizing land in eastern Ukraine.
“This is a complex task and a challenging mission that President Trump took upon himself,” Putin said of the diplomacy in an interview as he visited India.
“Achieving consensus among competing parties is no easy task, but President Trump, truly, I believe – he sincerely tries to do this,” he said, according to magazine India Today.
“I think we should engage with this effort rather than obstruct it.” Putin’s visit to India, a historic partner of Russia, comes as international isolation of him gradually eases.
Trump in August welcomed Putin to Alaska where they made no clear progress on ending the Ukraine conflict.
Critical time for Ukraine
Trump has previously mused that Russia will inevitably win more land and that Ukraine would be better off settling.
A first draft of the US plan would see Ukraine surrendering land that Russia has not been able to win on the battleground in return for security promises that fall short of Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.
Witkoff and Kushner have been working on modifications since meeting with the Ukrainians on November 23 in Geneva. The two sides met again the following week in Miami alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The talks come at a delicate time for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was hailed as a hero in the West at the start of the war but has had a tumultuous relationship with Trump.
Zelensky last week removed his top aide and negotiator Andriy Yermak, who days earlier had negotiated with Witkoff, as he came under investigation in a corruption scandal.
