Trump reveals details of Putin meeting with US envoy Witkoff

During today's speech in the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – US President Donald Trump mentioned his special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who has been working to establish contacts during the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Trump shared a story about how he first sent Witkoff to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine.

"He is working on the war with Russia and Ukraine. A war that would have never happened if I were president. 7,000 young soldiers a week are being killed. More than that, this last week. It's a shame. That should never have happened. But it did happen, and we won a race, and I took over this horrible war that's been raging, and I thought it would be easily settled. I thought it was a hell of a lot easier than doing what we just did very successfully with Israel," the president said.

Trump said he organized a meeting between Witkoff and Putin, believing it would be brief.

"I set up a meeting for him to meet with President Putin, thinking it would be a 15 or 20-minute meeting. Steve had no idea about Russia, and no idea about Putin too much, didn't know much about politics, wasn't that interested...I called up an hour later - he was still with Putin, three hours later - he was still with Putin... Five hours - he came out. I said, 'What the hell were you talking about for five hours?' And he says, just a lot of interesting things," Trump recounted.

Witkoff's visit to Moscow

In August, US special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

It was Witkoff's fifth visit to Moscow since Donald Trump's return to the White House.

Everything known about the Kremlin talks and the events that preceded them can be found in RBC-Ukraine's material.