Putin Envoy Visits Washington For Talks In First Since 2022 Ukraine Invasion
Earlier this week the Kremlin said it has given the Trump White House formal notification and evidence showing that Ukraine has continued attacking Russian energy sites, despite the US-backed agreement for each side to refrain from hitting this infrastructure.
On Wednesday Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that so far there’s been no response from the Trump administration. „So far, there has been no reaction to such actions by the Kiev regime,” Peskov said.
Previously Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described that a list of violations had been handed over to US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Russia’s representatives in the UN and the OSCE, „so that they in their work would present concrete facts demonstrating what the word of the Ukrainian authorities is worth,” according to TASS.
Kirill Dmitriev (right) is in Washington this week. Getty ImagesBut Ukraine has said it has done the same thing, as both sides have lately accused the other of violating the partial ceasefire. „We have passed on all the necessary information about Russian violations in the energy sector,” President Zelensky said in a Tuesday evening address.
He has called on Washington to strengthen sanctions on Russia, and as of Thursday the US Treasury has issued some further anti-Russia sanctions on its website.
„I believe we have come to the point of increasing the sanctions impact, because I believe that the Russians are violating what they have promised America. At least what America has told us, and publicly,” Zelensky said.
This week for the first time a top Russian negotiator and Putin representative will meet with Trump official Steve Witkoff in Washington. The US has temporarily waved sanctions on the Russian official in order to grant him a visa for the visit.
„His visit will mark the first time a senior Russian official has visited Washington, DC, for talks since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and marks a further step in the marked warming in relations between the two countries since President Donald Trump returned to office in January,” CNN writes.
Kirill Dmitriev is a „close adviser to Putin and traveled with top Russian officials to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia in February to start discussing a settlement for the end of the war in Ukraine,” the report notes. „He also worked with Witkoff to free American teacher Marc Fogel from Russia, which the Trump administration hailed as a goodwill gesture.”
As for where overall negotiations to end the war in Ukraine stand, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Tuesday that current US proposals on ending the war can’t be accepted in their current form.
Assuming CNN is accurate, Putin is sending a Harvard-educated financier—not a general, politician or spymaster—to meet Trump’s team in DC. Dmitriev runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund. Until a month ago, he wasn’t even a Kremlin official. It says a lot about Moscow’s game plan. https://t.co/s6sOwpjJW6
— Brian McDonald (@27khv) April 1, 2025
He complained they don’t address the „root causes” and that Kiev doesn’t appear ready to get serious about pursuing peace.
“What we have today is an effort to find a framework that would make it possible to ensure America’s vision for a ceasefire. The idea is to then move on to some other models and frameworks, which, as far as we can see, leave no room for Russia’s core demand, that is, the need to resolve the issues stemming from the root causes of this conflict,” he said, as quoted in TASS.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/02/2025 – 12:00
