Russian President Vladimir Putin praised US envoy Steve Witkoff’s role in negotiations on the war in Ukraine, saying he accurately reported the Kremlin’s viewpoint to Donald Trump following meetings.
“He quite reliably conveyed to President Trump the position of the Russian side,” Putin told reporters in Beijing, in response to a question about criticism of Witkoff in the US. “The fact that he accurately and objectively brings the position of the American leadership to us became absolutely obvious to me during the discussions in Anchorage.”
Witkoff, who took part in the summit in Alaska between the two presidents last month, has met five times with Putin in Russia this year as Trump pushed for a deal to end the war in Ukraine. He said after the summit that Putin and Trump had agreed that the US and other allies “could effectively offer Article 5-like” security guarantees to Ukraine, a reference to NATO’s mutual-defense clause that regards an attack on one member as an attack on all.
The Kremlin hasn’t confirmed this. That raised questions about whether Moscow made the concession or if the US delegation may have misunderstood Putin’s openness to such a security arrangement for Kyiv.
“What Mr. Witkoff and I had discussed, we confirmed all of it in full in the presence of President Trump and he didn’t object that this was his position,” Putin told the news conference in Beijing. “Those who criticize Witkoff are those who don’t like this position. But they don’t like Trump’s position either, that’s the whole point.”
On Tuesday, Putin said a consensus on security guarantees was possible, though he has stuck to maximalist demands to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that’s now in its fourth year. He also said the US administration was listening to Moscow and that a “mutual understanding is emerging.”
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
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