Axios: Trump's special representative Witkoff is going to Russia to meet with Putin

US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling to Russia and is expected to meet with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on Friday, citing a source familiar with the trip and FlightRadar data, Axios reports, UNN writes.

Details

This will be Witkoff's third meeting with Putin, as Trump pushes for a ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump is frustrated that negotiations have not made much progress in recent weeks, and at one point said he was "furious" with Putin's comments about Ukraine.

If a ceasefire is not reached by the end of the month, Trump may enact additional sanctions against Russia, either through executive action or by asking Congress to pass new sanctions legislation, Axios was told by a source familiar with the matter.

"We will find out soon enough, within weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not. I hope so," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels.

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Last week, Witkoff hosted Putin's special representative Kirill Dmitriev in Washington to try to break the deadlock.

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While Ukraine has agreed to Trump's proposal for an unconditional ceasefire and subsequently agreed to plans for a smaller ceasefire at sea, Russia has made a number of new demands, including the lifting of some sanctions.

"We are making progress. We hope that we are close enough to reaching an agreement between Russia and Ukraine on a cessation of hostilities," Trump said Thursday during a meeting of his cabinet.

Addition

The US and Russia reached a prisoner exchange agreement on Thursday that included the release of US citizen Ksenia Karelina. Negotiations on the operation resulted from a previous meeting between Witkoff and Putin in March, the publication writes.

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Trump said he appreciated Putin's decision to release Karelina. He mentioned that Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White told him that she was the girlfriend of a UFC fighter and asked him to help secure her release.

American and Russian diplomats met again in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss the normalization of relations between the countries.