Steve Witkoff, the New York real estate developer turned roving peace envoy for President Donald Trump, is heading to Russia this week for yet another round of talks with officials in Moscow with an eye towards pushing Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his years-long war against Ukraine.
Trump told reporters on Sunday that Witkoff, who has also been tasked with serving as a mediator in the Israel-Hamas conflict, would be traveling to Russia on either Tuesday or Wednesday for meetings ahead of Friday’s deadline for Moscow to call off the war or face more U.S. sanctions.
Asked what Putin could do to avoid harsh penalties, including secondary tariffs on goods from countries that purchase Russian oil, he told reporters: “Get a deal where people stop getting killed.”
But the president also expressed skepticism that new sanctions could hurt Russia’s economy, citing Moscow’s demonstrated ability to evade them.
“Well there will be sanctions but they seem to be pretty good at avoiding sanctions. You know, they’re wily characters and they’re pretty good at avoiding sanctions. So we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Trump’s Ukraine envoy, retired Army general Keith Kellogg, is understood to be planning travel to Kyiv at the same time Witkoff is in Moscow.
Witkoff has visited the Russian capital multiple times since being handed the Russia portfolio, and he has attracted attention in foreign policy circles for his nonchalant and conciliatory attitude towards Putin and his government.
He has openly spoken of his admiration for the Russian leader and once presented him with a painting of Trump as a gift. Witkoff has also violated normal diplomatic protocols by arriving without an American translator, instead relying on a Russian one during meetings without any other American witnesses.
Kremlin press secretary Dimitri Peskov told reporters on Monday that the Russian government is “always happy to see Mr. Witkoff in Moscow” and called the talks with the real estate developer “important, substantive and very useful.”
He also suggested that Witkoff could end up meeting with Putin during his time in the Russian capital.
The Trump White House envoy’s visit comes just days after Trump said he was redeploying a pair of American “nuclear submarines” in response to belligerent statements made on X by former Russian president Dimitri Medvedev earlier last week.
Writing on Truth Social on Friday, Trump said he was ordering the American warships to “the appropriate regions” due to what he called “the highly provocative statements of the Former President of Russia” and noted Medvedev’s status as a deputy chair of the Russian national security council.
Trump said the move was a precautionary measure “just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.”
“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances,” he added.
The online feud between Trump and Medvedev comes as months of talks in Turkey between Ukraine and Russia have failed to achieve anything beyond arrangements for exchanges of prisoners of war and the bodies of each side’s respective war dead.
Russia has continued to target Ukraine with nightly attacks by drones and other aerial weapons, with a civilian death toll that has incensed Trump and led him to send more U.S. made weapons to Ukraine after months of indulging the more isolationist-minded members of his government.
During an appearance last week alongside British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on the steps of his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, Trump complained that Putin had too often talked a good game about wanting to reach a ceasefire in the conflict only to resume bombing civilian targets in short order.
“We thought we had that settled numerous times. And then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv, and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever. You have bodies lying all over the street. And I say that’s not the way to do it,” Trump said.
