President Donald Trump’s envoys will meet with Ukrainian negotiators on Thursday for the third time in two weeks to press their plan to end the war as his administration eases economic pressure on Russia.
Two days after envoys met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Treasury Department partially suspended measures Trump had announced in October when he finally promised to get tough on Moscow.
The Treasury Department suspended economic sanctions against Lukoil-brand gas stations outside Russia until at least April 29.
A ban remains in place to prevent the money from returning to Russia, which has been under extensive 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 continuing negotiations.
Facilitate 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 Thursday night with top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov, a U.S. official said.
The meeting, which will be closed to the press, came two days after the Trump duo met with Putin for five hours, into the early hours, in Moscow.
Trump said the envoys had a “reasonably good meeting” with Putin.
Asked if Witkoff and Kushner had any sense that Putin really wanted to stop the nearly four-year-old Russian invasion, Trump responded: “He would like to end the war. That was his impression.” But Putin showed no public signs of relenting, as Russia slowly but steadily advances its land grab in eastern Ukraine.
“This is a complex task and a challenging mission that President Trump took on himself,” Putin said of diplomacy in an interview while visiting India.
“Achieving consensus among competing parties is not an easy task, but I think President Trump is honestly trying to do it,” he said, according to India Today magazine.
“I think we should engage with this effort rather than obstruct it.” Putin’s visit to India, a long-standing partner of Russia, comes as its international isolation gradually eases.
In August, Trump welcomed Putin to Alaska, where they made no clear progress toward ending the Ukraine conflict.
Critical moment for Ukraine
Trump has previously mused that Russia will inevitably gain more territory and that it would be better for Ukraine to settle.
In an early draft of the U.S. plan, Ukraine would hand over territories that Russia has failed to win on the battlefield in exchange for security promises that fall short of Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.
Witkoff and Kushner have been working on modifications since their meeting with the Ukrainians on November 23 in Geneva. The two sides met again the following week in Miami along with 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.
Last week, Zelensky dismissed his top adviser and negotiator, Andriy Yermak, who days earlier had negotiated with Witkoff, as he was being investigated for a corruption scandal.
