{"id":318166,"date":"2025-08-04T21:39:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T21:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/318166\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T21:39:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T21:39:19","slug":"trump-envoy-to-visit-moscow-this-week-before-deadline-for-ending-ukraine-war-us-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/318166\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump envoy to visit Moscow this week before deadline for ending Ukraine war | US foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy is expected in Moscow days before the US president\u2019s deadline on Friday for Russia to make progress on ending the war in Ukraine or face increased US sanctions.<\/p>\n

Trump said Steve Witkoff would visit Moscow on Wednesday or Thursday. When asked what message Witkoff would take to Russia and what Vladimir Putin<\/a> could do to avoid new sanctions, the US president answered: \u201cYeah, get a deal where people stop getting killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Kyiv, there is little expectation that Witkoff will make a breakthrough with Putin, but a hope that Trump\u2019s changed rhetoric and tougher stance on Moscow may lead to a real change in US support for Ukraine<\/a>. Sources in Kyiv said they expected Keith Kellogg, Trump\u2019s Ukraine envoy, to visit the country towards the end of the week, possibly to coincide with Witkoff\u2019s visit to Moscow.<\/p>\n

Trump came into office convinced he could do a deal with Putin, but in recent weeks appears to have become increasingly frustrated with Russia\u2019s actions. On Thursday he described its continued attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine as \u201cdisgusting\u201d and on Sunday said that two nuclear submarines that he ordered to be deployed after online threats from the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev<\/a> were now \u201cin the region\u201d, without giving further details.<\/p>\n

Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on social media: \u201cThe concept of peace through strength works.\u201dHe added that the appearance of the submarines had silenced Medvedev, whom he described as \u201cone Russian drunk who had just been threatening nuclear war on X\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump had initially announced in July a 50-day deadline for Russia<\/a> and Ukraine to end the war, but said last week he no longer believed Russia was serious about ending the war and shortened it to \u201c10 or 12\u201d days, later clarified as this Friday, 8 August.<\/p>\n

Trump has previously said the new measures he has in mind if the deadline is not met could involve \u201csecondary tariffs\u201d targeting Russia\u2019s remaining trade partners, such as China and India.<\/p>\n

Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said if Russia did not change its course by Friday, Kyiv would expect the \u201cirreversible logistics\u201d of secondary sanctions on Russian oil exports to be set in motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that he\u2019ll look whether this is helping to bring about the end of the war or not, and if not then he will move to the next step,\u201d said Podolyak, in an interview in Kyiv.<\/p>\n

The next move, he said, could be further sanctions, and the increased militarisation of Ukraine. \u201cTrump has already said he\u2019s ready to sell Europe as much weapons as they want [to pass to Ukraine]. Before he didn\u2019t say that \u2026 This is already a different conception of the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Before that, though, all eyes will be on Witkoff\u2019s visit to Moscow. On previous trips, he has held long one-on-one meetings with Putin and has spoken of his warm feelings for the Russian leader. On one occasion Putin gifted him an oil painting of Trump, on another, Witkoff arrived without an interpreter and used a Kremlin-provided translator.<\/p>\n

The camaraderie has left both Kyiv and other US allies wondering whether Witkoff is capable of delivering harsh messages to Moscow, although his visit this week will be the first since Trump\u2019s rhetoric on Ukraine became noticeably harsher.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin said on Monday it was \u201calways happy to see Mr Witkoff in Moscow\u201d and a meeting with Putin was possible, the spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He described talks with Witkoff as \u201cimportant, substantive and very useful\u201d.<\/p>\n

Putin said on Friday<\/a> that he was in favour of \u201ca lasting and stable peace on solid foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and would ensure the security of both countries\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite periodically making such statements, Putin has also made clear that Russia\u2019s maximalist war goals remain essentially unchanged, demanding as a minimum control over four Ukrainian regions to which Moscow has laid claim, and a commitment that Ukraine will never join Nato.<\/p>\n

Direct talks between Russia and Ukraine have taken place in Turkey, with the third round in Istanbul last month, but the last set of talks broke down in less than an hour and the only substantive outcome from the meetings has been a series of agreements on prisoner exchanges. Zelenskyy said on Sunday that a new exchange agreed at the last meeting in Istanbul would result in 1,200 Ukrainian troops returning home.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy has said he wants to meet directly with Putin, with Trump or Turkey\u2019s Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan as a mediator, but the Russian president has said he sees no point in a meeting until the outline of a ceasefire has been drawn up. However, the delegation he sent to Turkey, led by the former culture minister and patriotic author Vladimir Medinsky, suggests the Kremlin is not serious about a deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose countries who thought Russia was ready for talks, and that the war could end at any moment if Ukraine would only agree to negotiations, they can now see that Russia is not ready for any real talks,\u201d said Podolyak.<\/p>\n

Russia continues to target Ukraine with almost nightly drone and missile attacks. Last week was one of the deadliest for some time in terms of civilian casualties, with one set of attacks on Kyiv killing 31 people, including five children.<\/p>\n

Both sides continue to target infrastructure in the opposing country with drones. Russia\u2019s ministry of defence said on Monday that its air defences had intercepted 61 Ukrainian drones overnight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy is expected in Moscow days before the US president\u2019s deadline on Friday for Russia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-318166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114972666363690336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}