Trump’s Envoy Witkoff Goes to Russia to Meet Putin

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

Trump has become frustrated that negotiations haven't made much progress in recent weeks, and said at one point that he was "pissed off" about comments Putin had made on Ukraine.

If no ceasefire is reached by the end of the month, Trump could move forward with additional sanctions on Russia either through executive power or by asking Congress to pass new sanctions legislation, a source familiar with the issue told Axios.

"We will know soon enough, in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not. I hope they are," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels.

Last week, Witkoff hosted Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Washington in an effort to break the logjam.

While Ukraine agreed to Trump's proposal for an unconditional ceasefire, and subsequently agreed to plans for a smaller-scale maritime ceasefire, Russia made a series of new demands, including the lifting of some US sanctions.

"We are making progress. We hope that we are getting relatively close to getting a deal between Russia and Ukraine to stop the fighting," Trump said on Thursday during a Cabinet meeting.

The US and Russia implemented a prisoner exchange deal on Thursday that included the release of dual US-Russian citizen Ksenia Karelina.

The negotiations on the deal were a result of a previous meeting between Witkoff and Putin in March.