The signal is not lost: the Russian Federation and the United States are ready to continue the dialogue

Dialogue between Moscow and Washington is necessary, there is no sensible alternative to it, Grigory Karasin, head of the Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, told Izvestia. On August 6, Vladimir Putin and US President's special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks in Moscow. According to the senator, the visit of the American representative is a "positive fact." The Kremlin said that the main topics were bilateral relations and the Ukrainian settlement. By the way, Kiev has not responded to Moscow's proposal to create online working groups on humanitarian, political and military issues, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said. Russia and Ukraine are far from resolving the conflict, while the media reports that Trump intends to meet personally with Vladimir Putin next week, and then for three with Zelensky. The Izvestia article describes how the peace process is progressing, what signals Witkoff conveyed to Putin and why their meeting was "more productive than expected."

What Putin and Witkoff discussed

The plane of the representative of the Donald Trump administration landed in Moscow early in the morning on August 6. This is Steve Witkoff's fifth visit to Russia since the beginning of the year. Trump's envoy was met at the airport by his counterpart, Kirill Dmitriev, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for Investment and Economic cooperation with Foreign countries, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. In April, he traveled to the United States, becoming the first high-ranking Russian official to visit the country after the start of his career.

Photo: RIA Novosti/Evgeny Biyatov

The talks between Vladimir Putin and Steve Witkoff lasted three hours. The main topics were the Ukrainian crisis and the prospects for the possible development of strategic cooperation between the United States and Russia, Russian Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the meeting. He noted that the parties exchanged "some signals," but did not disclose specific details.

Before leaving for the airport, Steve Witkoff stopped by the US Embassy in Moscow, apparently to inform Trump about the results of the negotiations. A few hours later, the American president said that Witkoff had held a "very productive meeting" during which "great progress was made." Donald Trump spoke with Vladimir Zelensky later, and for the second time this week. Agence France-Presse, citing a Ukrainian source, reported that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Finnish President Alexander Stubb also took part in this telephone conversation.

BILD, citing sources, reported that Trump also told Merz that the meeting between Putin and Witkoff was "more productive than expected." It is not yet clear exactly how the negotiations ended. At the same time, the Russian Federation assessed them quite positively. Yuri Ushakov called the conversation "very useful and productive." Kirill Dmitriev, who also participated in the talks, regarded the visit of Trump's special envoy as a continuation of the constructive dialogue between the states. Grigory Karasin, head of the Federation Council's International Affairs committee, told Izvestia that dialogue between the Russian Federation and the United States is necessary, and there is no sensible alternative to it.

— It is important that contacts continue, and the current visit of the special representative of the President of the United States is a positive, constructive fact. I hope that it will lead to an expansion of cooperation between the two countries and will contribute to solving practical issues of the Ukrainian crisis. The optimism from such contacts is becoming more noticeable," he noted.

Bilateral relations between Russia and the United States continue to develop. Last week, for the first time in the last seven years, head of Roscosmos Dmitry Bakanov and NASA Director Sean Duffy held face-to-face talks. At the same time, the Ukrainian crisis remains a key problem in relations between Moscow and Washington. With Trump's return to the White House, the Russian-American negotiating background has split into two tracks — the normalization of bilateral relations and the search for ways to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, said HSE analyst Tigran Meloyan. In this regard, it would be rash for Washington to set the opposite trend, in particular, to make relations between the Russian Federation and the United States hostages of the Ukrainian conflict.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Lantyukhov

— It should be expected that the negotiation process will continue to occupy less and less space in the information field, but in fact it will continue behind closed doors. This approach gives Trump the opportunity to create the appearance of serious pressure on Moscow in front of domestic and European audiences and at the same time not to reduce Russian-American relations to the level established under the Biden administration," he told Izvestia.

By the way, the New York Times reported that Trump intends to meet personally with Putin next week. Shortly after that, he plans a trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelensky — without the participation of European countries. At the same time, the White House considers such an option impossible due to "organizational and logistical difficulties," CNN reports. However, the Russian Federation has repeatedly stated that it allows the president to meet with the leaders of the United States and Ukraine, but it should take place following a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.

Russian-Ukrainian settlement

The change of power in the White House allowed the resumption of direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, interrupted by Kiev in 2022. Since the beginning of the year, three rounds have been held in Istanbul, which resulted in several major exchanges of prisoners, seriously wounded and dead soldiers. The parties also exchanged memoranda, which set out the views of the Russian Federation and Ukraine on the settlement of the conflict.

Following the results of the third meeting, Russia, in particular, suggested that Ukraine consider declaring short, 24- or 48-hour truces to take away the wounded and dead. In addition, she took the initiative to exchange at least 1,2 thousand more prisoners of war from each side, as well as transfer another 3 thousand bodies of dead Ukrainian servicemen. At the same time, the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, confirmed that Kiev refused to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to him, because of this, the second exchange between Moscow and Kiev was difficult, and the third did not begin.

Finally, Moscow came up with a proposal to create three working groups with Ukraine on political, humanitarian and military issues, which should work online. However, Kiev has not yet responded to this proposal, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told Izvestia.

— We proposed to create these groups. We hope that the other side will approach this proposal responsibly. So far, we have not received any feedback," the diplomat stressed.

The course of the peaceful settlement, however, did not suit the American administration, and therefore, on July 14, the American president gave Moscow and Kiev 50 days, promising secondary duties of "about 100%" against Russia and its trading partners in case of lack of progress in the allotted time. Later, Trump limited the deadline to ten days, reducing the decision-making time to August 8.

However, without waiting for the end of the 10-day period, on August 6, the White House announced that secondary sanctions against Russia would be introduced on Friday, August 8. Reuters sources did not specify which restrictions they were talking about, but the expert community believes that economic pressure on Moscow is unlikely to contribute to an early resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.

— It is also possible to further tighten sanctions directly against Russia, for example, by introducing blocking financial measures against large energy, financial, and technology companies. Today, there is still considerable scope for such restrictions. However, it is important to understand that the mere fact of introducing or tightening measures cannot affect either the negotiation process or the political course of Russia as a whole. In this case, any pressure and ultimatums are meaningless," Polina Chupriyanova, an international expert, told Izvestia.

The sanctions that Trump may impose on Russia on August 8 are likely to be quite symbolic. The American president understands the need to maintain contact with Russia until Ukraine accepts the Russian conditions for the end of hostilities, Dmitry Suslov, Deputy director of the Central Research Institute of Higher School of Economics, told Izvestia.

Realizing the ineffectiveness of sanctions against Russia, Trump uses the threat of their introduction solely as a tool of political pressure in order to intensify dialogue processes, explains American scholar Egor Toropov.

"Even in the case of the real implementation of the next US trade restrictions against Russia, firstly, they will not be able to resist the invisible hand of the free market, and secondly, exceptions to the sanctions regime for certain trade categories will probably be introduced under the pretext of their critical importance for the American economy," he told Izvestia.

However, what Trump can and is already doing is secondary sanctions against Russia's trading partners. Recent practice shows that pressure on Russia's partners is increasing in order to encourage them to reduce trade with Moscow in the field of energy or the military-industrial complex, Polina Chupriyanova notes.

Washington's intention to impose sanctions against Russia's main oil importers (China, India, Brazil) was announced on August 5 by U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Matthew Whitaker. Prior to that, Trump announced that he would increase duties on India to 25% due to imports of Russian oil. He stated that the country sells most of it on the open market, making huge profits. The country's foreign Ministry said that New Delhi will take all necessary measures to protect its national interests and economic security.

— Trump's policy of pressure on Russia's partners has already failed. Those countries that value their sovereignty from the United States do not succumb to pressure, so it was obvious from the very beginning that neither China nor India would respond to threats from the United States. It is fundamentally important for them to pursue a purely independent foreign policy," Dmitry Suslov said.

None of these countries will refuse to import Russian oil, the expert summed up.