Putin defends Trump’s envoy
US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff ‘accurately’ conveys both Moscow’s and Washington’s positions on ending the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Witkoff has been subjected to criticism in Western media since Trump met Putin in Alaska last month in an effort to mediate a ceasefire in Ukraine.
The US president has since urged direct talks between his Russian counterpart and Vladimir Zelensky. Putin said on Wednesday that he is ready to host the Ukrainian leader in Moscow.
At a press conference ending his four-day visit to China, Putin stressed that Witkoff is presenting “the position of the American president himself.”
“Our talks in Anchorage showed that he quite accurately conveys the position of the Russian side,” Putin added.
The Russian president also spoke out in defense of the envoy, saying that Witkoff can be critiqued only by those “not in favor” of his or Trump’s position on Ukraine.
The Trump administration has repeatedly distanced the US from its previous blank-check policy on Ukraine. Earlier this month, Vice President J.D. Vance said that Washington would no longer fund Kiev directly.
Last month, Trump said the US is no longer directly funding Ukraine and will instead be profiting from arms sales to its European NATO partners, which in turn supply those weapons to Kiev.
Moscow has long insisted on a peace agreement that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict. It has demanded that Ukraine maintain neutrality, stay out of NATO and other military blocs, demilitarize and denazify, and accept the current territorial reality – including the status of Crimea and other regions that voted to join Russia in referendums in 2014 and 2022.
