Russia – USA: Putin – Witkoff Talks in St. Petersburg “Very Productive”
Kremlin: new phone conversation between Putin and Trump could take place in the coming hours. General Keith Kellogg: Ukraine can be divided into two parts, like Berlin after World War II
The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg on Friday, April 11, lasted four and a half hours. The main outcome of the talks, which centered on the conflict in Ukraine and Iran’s nuclear program, was an agreement to hold a new phone call between Putin and Trump, possibly as early as this coming weekend.
Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and special representative of the Russian president, who met with Witkoff before Putin, called the talks held in St. Petersburg “very productive.”
A new phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump could take place as soon as the next few hours. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told this the Russian news agency TASS. The phone conversation may follow a closed-door meeting between Putin and Witkoff at the St. Petersburg Presidential Library on Friday afternoon. Peskov did not go into details of the “long and amiable” conversation, noting only that “the talks focused on various aspects concerning the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.” According to US media, Witkoff suggested that Putin take on the role of mediator in nuclear talks between the USA and Iran.
Meanwhile, the US special envoy on the Ukrainian issue, Keith Kellogg (pictured), said that under a possible peace agreement with Russia, Ukraine could be “divided similar to Berlin after World War II.” In an interview with the British newspaper The Times, the US presidential representative suggested that French and British troops could take control of certain regions in western Ukraine, acting as a “guarantee force”; meanwhile, the Russian military could be stationed in the east of the country, and a demilitarized zone could be created in the central part of the former Soviet republic.
The former US general emphasized that the presence of Franco-British forces west of the Dnieper River, which divides Ukraine into two parts and flows through Kiev, “would in no way be a provocative act” towards Moscow. Kellogg said the country is “large enough” to have “different armed forces” on its territory at the same time as part of the effort to reach a cease-fire agreement. “It would be similar to what happened to Berlin after World War II,” Kellogg emphasized.
