In the fourth meeting between them, the special envoy of the United States, Steve Witkoff, and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin gathered for about three hours in Moscow on Wednesday (6).
Although both sides have described the meeting as productive, the White House confirmed that Russia’s secondary tariffs will still be applied from Friday (8).
Last week, US President Donald Trump reduced from 50 to ten days the deadline for Moscow to reach a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine.
Otherwise, a 100% rate on importing Russian products and a secondary at the same level to countries that buy from Russia will be applied later this week.
“The meeting with Russia and special envoy Witkoff went well. Russians are eager to continue dialogue with the United States. Secondary sanctions should still be implemented on Friday,” a White House employee told CNN.
Yuri Ushakov, Kremlin’s foreign policy advisor, told Russian Zvezda that the conversation of Putin and Witkoff was “very useful and constructive.”
“For our part, in particular on the Ukrainian issue, some signs were transmitted. Corresponding signs were also received from President Trump,” he added.
Shortly thereafter, Trump comments on the meeting on the Truth Social Network. “My special envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently had an extremely productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There was a great progress! Then I updated some of our European allies,” the president wrote.
“Everyone agrees that this war needs to come to an end, and we will work for it in the coming days and weeks,” he said.
For now, the meetings of Witkoff and Putin have not generated practical results: after the previous meeting between them in April, Russia intensified the attacks on Ukraine, which led Trump to stipulate the Ultimatum to Moscow.
