US envoy Steve Witkoff praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "humanitarian" on Wednesday, just hours after a Russian strike killed a one-year-old baby at a park in Ukraine's Kharkiv region.
Witkoff met Putin in St Petersburg, Russia, to discuss measures to end the nearly five-year full-scale war in Ukraine. The meeting followed "constructive" talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo, Norway, according to a US official.
Meeting with Putin in St Petersburg
During the meeting, Witkoff told Putin: "You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again."
The envoy's comments came after a Russian strike killed a one-year-old baby at a park in the Kharkiv region, underscoring the ongoing violence in the conflict.
Zelensky thanks US for intelligence resumption
After talks with Witkoff in Oslo, Zelensky thanked Washington on Tuesday for the resumption of US intelligence on Russian strikes. "We are thankful that intelligence works," Zelensky told reporters, describing the early warnings as "very, very important for our people, for children, adults, civilians" when ballistic missiles were about to strike.
The positive tone followed days of friction between Kyiv and Washington after Trump struck a diesel-supply deal with Putin and called for Zelensky to be replaced after Ukraine refused to stop hitting Russian oil refineries.
