NEW: Trump envoy Steve Witkoff meets Putin, signals progress toward ending war

President Donald Trump revealed on Wednesday that his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, had a "highly productive meeting" with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump said “great progress was made” and that he has since updated European allies. Trump said that “everyone agrees this war must come to a close,” and pledged efforts toward that goal in the coming weeks.

"My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Trump announced last week that he had dramatically shortened the ceasefire deadline he previously offered to Russia in its war against Ukraine. Speaking alongside UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump said the original 50-day window had been reduced to just 10 to 12 days, citing continued violence and stalled progress.

“There’s no reason in waiting,” Trump said at the time. “We just don’t see any progress being made.”

Trump had earlier warned that failure to reach a ceasefire would trigger US secondary tariffs of up to 100 percent on goods from countries continuing to do business with Russia. That warning now carries a much shorter countdown.

“I’ve spoken to President Putin a lot, I’ve gotten along with him very well,” Trump added. “He goes out and starts launching rockets into some city, like Kyiv, and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever, you have bodies lying all over the street.”

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