US President Donald Trump said a meeting on August 6 between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow "made a lot of progress" and said he might meet with Putin soon.
"There's a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon," Trump said after his spokeswoman confirmed he was open to a meeting with Putin to discuss Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Asked if Putin had offered anything in return for the meeting, Trump offered no specifics, saying only that “we’ve had very productive talks today.”
Trump spoke with reporters at the White House after his spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that the Russians "expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelenskyy.”
A diplomatic source from EU ranks told RFE/RL that a "personal Trump-Putin meeting seems to be in the making."
Trump plans to sit down with Putin as early as next week, and then wants a three-way meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, The New York Times and CNN reported, citing people familiar with the plan. There's been no information on where the meeting would be held.
Lucian Kim, Ukraine analyst at International Crisis Group, told RFE/RL that Putin has been reluctant to meet Zelenskyy, but wouldn't want to forgo a chance to meet Trump.
"We should be aware that his idea of a solution to the conflict is very different from Trump's or Zelenskyy’s,” Kim said.
Putin has been seeking to balance an obvious desire to improve badly strained relations between Russia and the United States with his continuing effort to subjugate Ukraine, where he launched the biggest war in Europe since 1945 with the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Putin's top foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, called the roughly three-hour meeting between Witkoff and Putin at the Kremlin "quite useful and constructive."
"Our side gave certain signals about the Ukrainian issue, among other things," and "signals were received from President Trump," Ushakov said. In addition to the war, he said, they discussed "the prospects for the possible development of strategic cooperation between the US and Russia."
John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, was cautious about the prospect of a deal to end the war resulting from the Witkoff-Putin meeting.
"We've kind of seen this movie before where Trump will threaten economic punishment if a deal isn't made by a certain deadline, and then the Russians kind of offer some empty promise or meaningless talks, and the can gets kicked down the road," Hardie told RFE/RL. "I would hope that is not going to be the case here."
The potential summit was discussed in a call between Trump and Zelenskyy after Witkoff met Putin, according to media reports. NATO Secretary- General Mark Rutte and the leaders of Britain, Germany, and Finland took part in the call, a source in Kyiv said, according to AFP.
Trump said he spoke by phone with Zelenskyy and "European allies," and "everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come."
"Our common position with our partners is absolutely clear: The war must end. It must be an honest end," Zelenskyy wrote on X of the call, in which the world leaders discussed the talks in Moscow.
What About Trump's August 8 Cease-Fire Deadline?
The Kremlin meeting took place two days ahead of Trump's August 8 deadline for Putin to agree to a cease-fire with Kyiv or face additional tariffs aimed at reducing Russian oil revenues used to fund the war.
The White House also threatened secondary measures against countries seen as helping fund Russia's war machine.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump will decide in the next 24 to 36 hours whether to impose the secondary sanctions.
Rubio said in an interview with Fox Business that it had been a "good day," but there were still "many impediments to overcome.”
“We have a better understanding of the conditions under which Russia would end the war,” Rubio said, adding that the key elements of ending the war will be territorial.
In a possible sign that the White House is still pushing its August 8 deadline, Trump signed an executive order imposing an additional 25 percent tariff on India. The new import tax, effective in 21 days, will raise duties on some Indian exports to as high as 50 percent -- among the highest levied on any US trading partner.
India’s External Affairs Ministry called the decision “extremely unfortunate,” noting that many other countries are also importing Russian oil in their national economic interest.
"India will take all necessary steps to protect its national interests," it said, adding that purchases were driven by market factors and the energy needs of India's 1.4 billion people.
Trump said he would determine later whether there would be tariffs on Russia and said he might also announce tariffs on China.
Russia Air Strikes Pound Ukraine
Hours before Witkoff's arrival in Moscow, Zelenskyy said that "the Russians are now trying to make their attacks more intense."
"It is extremely important that Moscow is beginning to feel the pressure of the world, the pressure from the United States, the threat of tougher sanctions for continuing the war," Zelenskyy said on X.
Russian air strikes hit several locations in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya region early on August 6, including a recreation center, killing two people and injuring 12, military administration chief Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram. Four of the injured were children.
Separately, Russia struck a gas pumping station meant for the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States and Azerbaijan, whose ties with Moscow have soured lately, Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said.
"This is a Russian strike purely against civilian infrastructure, deliberately targeting the energy sector and...relations with Azerbaijan, the United States and partners in Europe, as well as the normal lives of Ukrainians and all Europeans," the ministry said.
TASS cited the Russian Defense Ministry as saying it attacked gas transportation facilities it claimed supply Ukraine's military. It did not give details or evidence.
Trump proposed a full, extendable 30-day cease-fire in April and Ukraine agreed, but Russia effectively rejected the idea, saying it wants peace but setting several conditions that Kyiv and many in the West say are unacceptable.
In addition to Ukrainian neutrality and strict limits on the size of its military, Putin has demanded that Ukraine hand Russia four regions it partially occupies and baselessly claims as its own: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson.
Many analysts say that with Russian forces making persistent gains on the front lines, albeit at a huge cost, Putin wants to seize those regions in their entirety before starting any substantive talks.
While few expect Russia to end or halt its war in the coming days, some analysts had predicted the Kremlin might use Witkoff's visit to try to stave off or soften the sanctions threat. Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg News reported that Moscow was considering possible concessions that could include an offer of a pause on air strikes involving drones and missiles.
"For Russia, it is now important to find certain initiatives that can help postpone Trump's deadline. And accordingly, to apply a 'salami tactic' -- slicing everything into very thin pieces and feeding Trump small victories over time," Ukrainian political analyst Oleh Saakyan told Current Time on August 6 before the Putin-Witkoff meeting.
"The only question is whether Trump is ready to fall into this trap or not."
Three rounds of direct Russian-Ukraine talks in Istanbul since May produced agreements on prisoner exchanges but no apparent progress toward peace, and the sides' positions remain miles apart.
Trump announced on July 14 that Putin had 50 days to end the war or Russia would face severe tariffs targeting its oil and other exports, but he later moved the deadline up to August 8.
The decision corresponded with a deadly week for civilians in Ukraine, including a July 31 attack on Kyiv involving more than 300 drones that killed at least 31 people. Ukrainian forces also increased strikes on Russian infrastructure.
Some analysts said threatening China over its Russian oil purchases could potentially backfire on Trump given it was hard to imagine that Beijing would halt the purchases, while secondary sanctions could drive oil prices higher.
“Putin will stop killing people if you get energy [prices] down another $10 a barrel," Trump said on CNBC television on August 5.
The escalating attacks and the approaching deadline for a deal also come as Trump said he had deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the "appropriate regions."
Trump said on August 1 that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines "closer to Russia" because of "highly provocative statements" by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
