Putin agrees to resume three-way talks with Kyiv and Washington

You are a humanitarian, sir. This is how Steve Witkoff praised the wanted war criminal, Vladimir Putin, Russia's authoritarian president. The man who started the war in Ukraine. The man who's kept up the cruel bombardment of residential and energy infrastructure for the past four and a half years. Were Witkoff's words just lip service? He succeeded in getting an American prisoner freed by Putin. So maybe there was some method in what seems like his madness. But it's worth noting, this is Witkoff's eighth documented visit to Putin. he's only been to Kyiv just once while special envoy. The Putin-Witkoff meeting lasted three hours. There was no comment afterwards. Witkoff was there after his meeting yesterday with Vladimir Zelensky and we understood he was taking Zelensky's peace plans to Putin for discussion. Putin thanked Trump and Witkoff for their efforts to end the war. Remember of course this war started by Putin himself. A war that he could stop anytime. He could even do it right now. Putin has said this Wednesday, he's ready to resume trilateral peace talks with Trump and Xi Jinping, that's US and China, about Ukraine, but without Ukraine being present and without any representation from Europe. Liza Herbert has this. American Stephen Hubbard was behind bars in Russia for over four years, charged with acting as a mercenary for Ukraine. In January 2025, Washington designated the 74-year-old retired schoolteacher as wrongfully detained. Now, US Envoy Steve Witkoff has hailed President Vladimir Putin for his release. Thank you for having us here. And you talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir. The apparent act of goodwill in which the US is not required to give anything in return came as Witkoff was in St. Petersburg delivering quote ideas to Moscow on how an end to the war could be reached and pushing for trilateral negotiations. During the three-hour meeting the pair heavily praised each other including over the recent US-Russia diesel deal and Putin even offered to assist with the crisis in the Middle East. You know that we have a special trusting relationship with Iran and with our partners in Iran who are friends because it has been built over decades and if we can do anything to resolve this crisis we'll be happy to do so. The friendly nature of their meeting is unlikely to ease Ukraine's concerns that its US ally is pulling away. From Oslo, where he also met with Witkoff a day earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky put on a brave face, saying on Wednesday he hoped for a positive outcome from discussions and called to freeze the fighting along the front lines as a first step to talks. But with relations between Washington and Kyiv at a new low, Zelensky appears to have his work cut out for him if he wants to get the US back on side. Well, as I heard with that report, let's broaden our analysis and welcome to the program Gregoire Rousse, who is from Chatham House, the think tank, where he's the director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program. Gregoire, thanks for being with us here on France 24. We appreciate your time. Why would Steve Witkoff refer to Vladimir Putin, call him a humanitarian? Well, I think because he's simply obsessed with the man. And so is Donald Trump, obsessed with money, obsessed with power. And Putin understands that. And he has played quite intelligently with that weakness, which is, again, a way to demonstrate the assent of Putin on Donald Trump. I must say, however, that the Republican Party itself has not welcomed the comment. You've seen already some senators, including Tom Tillis from North Carolina, blaming Steve Witkoff for daring to use that word when Putin is still causing thousands, hundreds and thousands of civilian deaths every day, and not to mention the abduction of Ukrainian children so um i'm not saying that cynically europeans should welcome such a reckless comment but it will obviously have repercussions within the republican party insofar as it underlines and highlights the amateurism of uh of steve witkoff and steve witkoff jared kushner supposedly two peace envoys i mean blatantly they are not doing their job are they well you know i Well, make a confession. I had a discussion with the head of the intelligence service of a big NATO country before the summer, and we talked about how his country was seeing the efforts of those two envoys and the U.S. administration to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. and that person said well as far as i can assess the americans are genuinely willing to bring an end to the peace in ukraine they only have one minor problem they are completely incompetent and i think that the past few weeks have confirmed that uh that assessment i must say uh on top of it that uh there were hopes some weeks ago that you would have a kind of parallel channel with uh more competent officials especially from the intelligence services after we heard that the head of the cia had and even the fbi for that matter had traveled to moscow to the kremlin uh but i think those were uh false hopes and uh witkoff and kushner remain the main interlocutors of vladimir putin himself and ushakov and all the the circle around uh around putin so that means one thing um that europeans should really double down on diplomacy uh because it shows that trump listens to uh the people who tell him what he wants to hear and that is an indication of what it takes to be listened to and to be heard eventually by donald trump putin says he's happy gregory to discuss with the two other um i'll use the words great dictators i'm being figurative of course because they could argue they're not dictators but that's a moot point perhaps Xi Jinping Donald Trump uh to discuss Ukraine and ending the war but of course without Zelensky and without Europe being present so in a sense this is three men getting together uh showing who perhaps is the strongest or thinks they're the strongest and not really uh committed to achieve anything like peace that will be something that will be respected in international law perhaps looking just to divide the spoils in some way shape or from clearly this stinks as an idea obviously not two things first it's just been confirmed that Russia had agreed to meet uh to have a trilateral with the Ukrainians and the Americans uh it's just fresh it's just been confirmed so there will be a trilateral the Ukrainians want it to happen as soon as possible and so the Americans so do the Americans it's not clear whether of course Putin would meet Trump and Zelensky i i don't see that happen putin uh meeting zelensky is the last thing that putin would be prepared to do but let's see let's see when it comes to Xi i think everyone is winning uh trump is happy because he shows that he's uh an equal to those two great strong men whom he uh has always said directly or indirectly that he admires uh very much putin uh wins more gains more time he wins wins time buys time because uh the more the more useless discussions you have uh the the the longer it takes to uh to get to the real uh to get to the real discussion and xi jinping shows that china has become unavoidable uh to bring peace uh in far a remote region you know far away from china and has therefore become an unavoidable um an unavoidable uh power in in on the diplomatic stage so each of the three would benefit from such a meeting, which will obviously have no impact whatsoever on the course of the war. So Zelensky, hoping for neutral talks with Russia and the US by early November. That's a new development. Thank you for bringing us up to date with that one. In terms of what happens in terms of Xi Jinping's influence, perhaps he's one of the people who could in some way, shape or form have some kind of influence on Vladimir Putin. Yeah, absolutely. But as we speak, Chinese companies are still providing Russia with with with with components for their killer drones and in spite of the more symbolic than anything else to be frank sanctions that the eu has imposed on those chinese companies you still see chinese companies selling those components to to russia so yes xi jinping has uh room for maneuver and influence i would not necessarily overestimate which is i find something that the europeans tend to do the power that Xi has over Putin, and Xi knows that. The Russians are not as controllable as the Europeans like to think. But yes, there is undeniably more influence in the hands of Xi that he has used for now. But to be frank, this kind of status quo is in the interest of Xi, who's always said that in very different ways through the BRICS and other institutions, he aimed at bringing down and putting an end to the uh western domination of the world order and this is part of his ambition of a new multipolar world and therefore he doesn't obviously doesn't want putin to win in ukraine that would go against the interest of Xi also because it would weaken Europe and China cannot have uh too weak a European continent but at the same time he doesn't want Putin to lose either so that kind of of edge is uh is is narrow and sharp but for now the status quo plays uh plays favorably uh for uh for Beijing, Gregor Rus from Chatham House, thank you very much sir for joining us, Gregor Rus is the director for Europe Russia and Eurasia that program there Gregor, thank you as always for joining us here in France 24, we appreciate your time, thank you sir very much indeed