Steve Witkoff, an envoy for President Trump, met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for the fifth time this year on Wednesday, Russian state news agencies said, holding talks that Mr. Trump has described as pivotal in determining whether the United States goes ahead with new sanctions against Russia.
Mr. Witkoff was greeted at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport early Wednesday by Kirill Dmitriev, an economic aide to Mr. Putin who has been his main counterpart at the Kremlin. Afterward, Russian state television showed Mr. Dmitriev and Mr. Witkoff taking a walk in the morning sun in Zaryadye, a landscaped park just outside the Kremlin walls.
Mr. Putin then received Mr. Witkoff in the Kremlin, Russian state news agencies reported, citing the Kremlin, without providing further details.
It was the fifth visit to Russia this year by Mr. Witkoff, a longtime personal friend of Mr. Trump who now holds the title of special envoy for peace missions.
In each previous visit, Mr. Witkoff held hourslong talks with Mr. Putin himself, receiving extraordinary access to a Russian leader who has met with few Western officials since he invaded Ukraine, and who rarely grants audiences to foreigners who are not heads of state.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said this week that he would “not rule out the possibility” of a meeting between Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Putin this time as well.
Those meetings helped facilitate prisoner exchanges that freed two Americans jailed in Russia, and helped pave the way for phone calls between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump. But none brought clear signs of progress in ending the war in Ukraine, one of Mr. Trump’s top foreign policy priorities.
While Mr. Trump initially appeared to give Mr. Putin the benefit of the doubt and blamed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine for dragging out the three-year war, he has increasingly soured on Mr. Putin in his public comments lately. Mr. Putin, on the other hand, has sought to placate and engage with Mr. Trump without showing any willingness to compromise on his far-reaching goals in his war against Ukraine.
Mr. Trump said on July 28 that he would give Moscow 10 to 12 days to end the conflict or face a new round of financial penalties — a deadline that expires soon.
Asked on Tuesday whether he was still considering sanctioning countries like China that buy Russian energy, Mr. Trump said the United States would “be doing quite a bit of that,” but suggested that Mr. Witkoff’s visit would determine the next steps.
“We have a meeting with Russia tomorrow,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to see what happens. We’ll make that determination at that time.”
Mr. Putin’s forces have been advancing on the ground and have pummeled Ukraine with some of their fiercest airstrikes of the war in recent months, even as Mr. Trump has tried to negotiate peace. The United Nations said that June saw the most civilian casualties in a single month over the past three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured, and that preliminary data showed that “this alarming pattern” continued in July.
Overnight, Russia again hit Ukraine with drone strikes. A summer holiday resort in the Zaporizhzhia region of southeastern Ukraine was targeted, killing two people and injuring 12, including children, Ukrainian officials said.
Mr. Zelensky on Tuesday encouraged new sanctions against Russian oil.
“For Russia to move toward peace, it must run out of money for the war,” he said.
Energy exports are the main source of revenue for the Russian government, though those earnings have declined as the price of Russian oil has fallen. The Russian government collected about $9.8 billion in oil and gas taxes in July, Russia’s Finance Ministry said Tuesday, a 27 percent drop from a year earlier when measured in Russian currency.
Erica L. Green contributed reporting from Washington and Maria Varenikova from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
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