The man who has emerged as Donald Trump’s geopolitical dealmaker-in-chief has said that he’s developed a “friendship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Steve Witkoff was named as Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy shortly after the US election but he has since been involved in negotiations with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine.

Mr Witkoff made the comments about his relationship with Mr Putin at a Saudi-run investment forum in Miami, where he discussed his remarkable overnight trip to Moscow last week to secure the release of US citizen Marc Fogel.

“I spent a lot of time with Putin. Talking and developing a friendship and relationship with him…” Mr Witkoff said.

The secret overnight trip to bring the Pennsylvania teacher home seems to be emerging as a key moment in the dramatically shifting dynamics between the Trump administration and the Kremlin.

The details of the release and what was discussed have never been released.

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In describing the success of the deal, Mr Witkoff said: “First I had the support of President Trump which is a really big deal. Secondly we have a really good relationship with the Saudis…. They assured us that this was real… and so to me it became worth the trip. And so we went. And it was a great trip. I spent a lot of time with President Putin, talking, developing a friendship, a relationship with him and that led to Mark getting on the plane…”

The role of the Saudi government is a reflection of Riyadh’s remarkable and emerging geopolitical clout.

After Mr Witkoff’s Moscow trip, the Riyadh talks between the US and Russia were secured.

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Speaking to Sky News on the sidelines of the investment conference and addressing President Trump’s “dictator” comments about President Zelenskyy, Mr Witkoff said: “I think I agree with President Trump, he has a very keen sense of what has to be done to create a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.

“And I follow his lead, and I believe in what he’s got to say.”

He added: “I think it brings… the president has an uncanny ability of knowing how to bring people together and this is the beginning.”

Donald Trump has said Volodymyr Zelenskyy “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left” as peace talks between the US and Russia continue – without Ukraine at the table.

Officials from the White House and the Kremlin have this week begun holding discussions in Saudi Arabia.

The decision for the talks to take place without representatives from Kyiv or Europe has caused concern, and sparked an emergency meeting of European leaders in France earlier this week.

Mr Trump’s latest comments – in which he also calls Mr Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” – come after the Ukrainian president accused him of living in a Russian-made “disinformation space” as a result of his administration’s discussions with Kremlin officials.

Ukraine latest: Follow updates as Putin makes peace talks claim

In a post on his social media platform TruthSocial, the US president said Mr Zelenskyy had “talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion dollars, to go into a war that couldn’t be won, that never had to start”.

“The only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle’,” he added.

Mr Trump continued: “Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a country left.

“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do.

“Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going.”

“I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues,” he wrote.

Mr Trump later repeated his comments in a rambling speech to a Saudi-run investment forum in Miami.

Top end estimates suggest hundreds of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, have died in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Millions of Ukrainians have fled their country as refugees.

Mr Trump also repeated his claim that the Ukrainian president has low approval ratings – which has already been dismissed by Mr Zelenskyy as Russian disinformation – and claimed American aid money had been misused.

The latest poll, carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in early February, found 57% of Ukrainians trust their leader.

Ukraine’s general election, scheduled for April 2024, were delayed because of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

Speaking after Mr Trump’s comments, Mr Zelenskyy called for pragmatism from the US.

He said in his nightly address: “We are standing strong on our own two feet. I am counting on Ukrainian unity, our courage… on the unity of Europe and the pragmatism of America.”

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the US president labelling Mr Zelenskyy a “dictator” is “false and dangerous”, German newspaper Spiegel reported.

“It is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy his democratic legitimacy,” Mr Scholz said.

Putin: ‘No one is excluding Ukraine from talks’

Mr Trump’s latest post comes after Vladimir Putin insisted Kyiv could have a seat at the negotiating table.

The Russian president said earlier on Wednesday: “No one is excluding Ukraine from peace talks.”

“We are ready, I have already said this a hundred times – if they want, please let these negotiations take place and we will be ready to return to the table,” he said.

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Referencing Mr Zelenskyy’s 2022 decree that rejected talks with Moscow, he added: “The Europeans have stopped contacts with Russia. The Ukrainian side has forbidden itself to negotiate.”

According to the Russian leader, the “goal and subject” of Tuesday’s talks in Saudi Arabia “was the restoration of Russia-US relations”.

Mr Zelenskyy is expected to meet later with Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, who arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday.

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Russia launches assault on Odesa

Overnight, Russian forces launched a drone attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa, injuring four people including a child, Mr Zelenskyy said.

At least 160,000 people were left without heating in sub-zero temperatures, he added.

“Rescue operations are under way in Odesa after another Russian attack on the energy infrastructure,” Mr Zelenskyy said on the Telegram app.

“It is civilian energy facilities against which the Russian army has not spared neither missiles nor attack drones for almost three years.”

Ukraine’s president appears to be fighting a war on two fronts – against Russian forces on the ground and against American assaults over the airwaves.

View from Ukraine by Deborah Haynes, security and defence editor

With Donald Trump openly attacking him, Ukraine’s president is dispensing with the diplomatic niceties towards a crucial partner and is instead fighting back.

It is a risky move given the heavy reliance of Volodymyr Zelenskyy on American military support to fight Russia’s invasion and the US leader’s dislike of criticism.

But the past week of disruptive, strongman diplomacy from the White House – upending traditional assumptions about US support for European and Ukrainian security – has clearly been too much for Kyiv to stomach without speaking back, and bluntly.

Mr Zelenskyy used a press conference inside the presidential compound on Wednesday to say the American commander in chief is surrounded by a circle of disinformation after Mr Trump falsely claimed Ukraine was to blame for Russia’s war and that Mr Zelenskyy has a public approval rating of just 4%.

The US president is pushing for elections in Ukraine – something that would be very difficult to conduct while the country is still under Russian missile and drone attack and with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fighting on the frontline.

Mr Zelenskyy said the most recent surveys showed 57% of the population supported him – a similar rating to Mr Trump.

He also issued his strongest criticism yet of an attempt by the Trump administration to make Kyiv sign away half of the wealth it has from rare minerals and other natural resources – equal in value to about $500bn.

Mr Zelenskyy said he could not “sell our state”, adding this was not a “serious” conversation.

But he knows that he does need to have serious dialogue with Washington even after President Trump picked up the phone to Vladimir Putin a week ago, kicking off a thawing of ties between Moscow and Washington that led to a meeting of top US and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and plans for a summit between the American and Russian presidents.

A first step will be engaging with Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general currently Mr Trump’s envoy to Ukraine and Russia, who arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday morning – though was curiously absent from the Saudi Arabia talks despite his job title.

Ukraine’s president said he will talk with Mr Kellogg and would like to take him to visit the frontline and speak to soldiers to understand their view, while also talking to members of the public in the capital to hear what they have to say about the war, Mr Zelenskyy’s efforts and also the comments by Mr Trump.

The envoy, speaking to a small group of journalists when he stepped on the train, said he was there to listen and report back to Mr Trump.

Asked how confident he was that he would be able to bring Mr Zelenskyy to the negotiating table, Mr Kellogg said: “I’m always confident.”

The coming days will tell whether that confidence is well placed.

Read more:
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View from Russia by Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent

Volodymyr Zelenskyy had the appearance of a beleaguered leader who knows he is now fighting a war on two fronts – against Russian forces on the ground and against American assaults over the airwaves.

Ukraine’s leader looked almost shell-shocked from Donald Trump’s verbal volleys last night, in which the US president accused Kyiv of starting the war.

What has been Ukraine’s biggest supporter now suddenly poses an existential threat. But for now, Mr Zelenskyy is fighting back.

He accused Mr Trump of being “trapped in a disinformation bubble” – that he has not just drunk the Kremlin’s Kool-Aid, but is now bathing in it.

He pushed back on Mr Trump’s spurious claims of only having a 4% approval rating, calling it propaganda from Russia. Moscow has repeatedly tried to portray Mr Zelenskyy as an illegitimate leader, due to his term expiring under martial law.

In reality, his numbers are similar to Mr Trump’s, which should resonate with a man who became obsessed with TV ratings during his first term.

But it seems that facts do not always matter now to the White House.

And he was extremely dismissive – to the point of ridicule, almost – of the proposed US/Ukraine mineral deal.

“Not a serious conversation”, he said, rejecting Mr Trump’s business-first approach. Mr Zelenskyy still wants the focus on Ukraine’s scorched earth, not rare earths.

His messages and manner are in stark contrast to those of Vladimir Putin.

Ever since the US election in November, the Russian president has sought to flatter Mr Trump, sympathise with him and be deferential, even when responding to barbs.

And in Riyadh yesterday, Moscow began reaping the rewards.

But Mr Zelenskyy’s position is different, of course. Once the man of the moment, he’s now struggling to stay relevant – in danger of being run down by the Donald Trump deal-making juggernaut.

For now, he’s standing in the road trying to stop it. But any hope that it will change course or hit the brakes may be misplaced.