Donald Trump’s envoy negotiates for hours with Putin in Moscow

Shortly before the deadline that US President Donald Trump set to the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine, US special officer Steve Witkoff in Moscow spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the state Russian news agency TASS, the meeting on Wednesday took almost three hours. In view of the previously unsuccessful efforts to persuade Putin to give in, Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj demanded even more pressure on Moscow.

“It is very important that all levers are strengthened that are available to the United States, Europe and the G7 countries, so that a ceasefire can really come into force,” wrote Selenskyj in online media. Russia will not end the war if it does not feel enough pressure, the Ukrainian president added.

Trump had threatened Russia with further sanctions if Moscow did not end the war of attack in Ukraine until Friday. The US President announced so-called secondary sanctions against Russian trading partners such as China and India.

On Tuesday, he said he wanted to wait for Witkoff’s talks in Moscow before getting any punitive measures on the way. “We’ll see what happens,” Trump said to journalists. Nothing became known about the content of the conversation between Witkoff and Putin.

Russia had so far been unimpressed by Trump’s ultimatum. “Threats” in relation to customs surcharges against the trading partners of Russia are “illegal”, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, without referring directly to the USA.

Negotiations on an ceasefire in Ukraine have so far been in vain. The warring parties have already met three times in the mediation of Türkiye and the USA in Istanbul. Prison exchanges were agreed, but there were no progress in terms of ceasefire. Russia has even strengthened its drone and rocket attacks on Ukraine. In July, Moscow fired as many long -distance drones like never before since the beginning of the war in February 2022.

In the event of renewed Russian attacks, a holiday center in Saporischschja was hit on Wednesday. According to the governor of the region, Iwan Fedorow, two people were killed and twelve more injured, including four children. “This attack has no sense militarily. That is pure cruelty that should scare people,” wrote Selenskyj in online media.

According to Fedorow, Russia attacked “at least four” air strikes at around 6:00 a.m., according to Fedorow. As a result of the attacks, a fire broke out on the site. The emergency workers show how firefighters fought against the fires at the holiday accommodations. There were also corpses and injuries lying on the ground.

According to Ukrainian authorities, a man born in 1959 was also killed in a Russian attack in Pokrowsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk.

Saporischschja and Donetsk are two of the five Ukrainian areas that Russia had declared annexed. The other regions partially occupied by Moscow are Cherson, Luhansk and the Crimea peninsula. Russia calls for full control over the areas and a waiver of Ukraine on NATO accession. Kyiv has always rejected both claims as “unacceptable”.