On Feb. 11, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, went to Moscow and spent three-and-a-half hours with Putin.
There is no official account of their meeting. Witkoff had traveled to Russia to help secure the release of Marc Fogel, an American teacher held for three and a half years for a minor medical cannabis infraction.
In a CBS News interview, Witkoff, a New York real estate developer and a friend of Trump’s, called his hours-long meeting with Putin a “trust building” assignment from the American president. He said he was the only U.S. official present at the meeting and carried a message for Putin from Trump. Witkoff also said the Russian leader “had something for me to transmit back to the president,” but did not say what that was.
The following day, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had spoken with Putin and they had “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.”
“We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,” he added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said that during the 90-minute call Putin had “expressed readiness to receive American officials in Russia regarding areas of mutual interest, including, of course, the topic of Ukrainian settlement.”
On Feb. 13, Trump announced a list of diplomats who would attend the talks with Russia. Witkoff, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and national security adviser Michael Waltz were on the team led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio
Kellogg was not on the list. A second U.S. official told NBC News at the time that the decision stung him.
A representative for Witkoff would not comment when NBC News asked whether his boss discussed Kellogg’s exclusion with Putin.
When asked last week whether Russian officials had requested Kellogg not be included in the high-level talks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was up to American leaders to “fix their delegation” and her country’s diplomats had “great experience of dealing with different envoys.”
Andrei Fedorov, Russia’s former deputy foreign minister who maintains close ties with the Kremlin, went further, telling NBC News that Kellogg was “not the person with whom Russia will negotiate with” because his position on the talks was to freeze the front line in Ukraine.
Russia wants Kyiv’s forces to withdraw from Ukrainian regions where there is still fighting, including the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia administrative regions known as oblasts, Fedorov, said.
Russia illegally annexed the regions, along with Donetsk and Luhansk, in September 2022.
Little was said about the war in Ukraine after Rubio and his team met with Russian officials in Riyadh, on Feb. 18, although the secretary of state did announce that the countries had agreed to restore embassy staffing.
Trump has since played hardball with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with relations reaching a low point after their extraordinary Oval Office spat on Feb. 28. The U.S. subsequently put a pause on intelligence sharing and providing security assistance to Ukraine.
This was lifted on Tuesday after a Ukrainian delegation agreed to a proposal for a 30-day interim ceasefire at a meeting in Saudi Arabia with Rubio and his team
Kellogg was not present.
On Thursday, Trump dispatched Witkoff to Russia again.
Shortly after his arrival, Putin told a news conference that he agreed “with the proposals to stop the hostilities,” but there were issues that needed to be discussed. He added that he may need to “have a phone call with Trump.”
Kristen Welker and Peter Alexander contributed.