Russia Matters, 4/11/25

1. Vladimir Putin hosted Steve Witkoff to discuss Ukraine and, possibly, Iran, but so far details of the meeting, which was not announced in advance and which was not followed by any media opportunities, have been scarce in the public domain. Putin hosted Wiktoff in St. Petersburg on April 11 in what became their third meeting to explore ways Russia and the U.S. could move toward putting an end to the Russian-Ukrainian war as well as, possibly, the Iran issue, but as of 4:00 p.m. (UTC−05:00), no details were reported on either what exactly the two discussed or whether and what the outcomes of the four-hour meeting may have produced. Prior to the meeting, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov cautioned reporters that it was unlikely to produce “decisive results.”¹ At the beginning of the meeting, Peskov said “the negotiation process itself is a closed process,” making clear that the sides were not going to reveal details to the public. Indeed, after the meeting was over, neither Putin nor Wiktoff made any public comments, with Trump’s envoy leaving the venue. Commenting on the contents of the talks after the meeting was over, Peskov only said that the talks focused on “aspects of a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.” According to pro-Kremlin Russian political expert Sergei Markov, however, Putin and Wiktoff also discussed Iran’s nuclear program, which is something that Witkoff is to discuss during the next leg of his trip on April 12 in Oman. Unlike Putin’s previous two meetings with Witkoff in Moscow,² Russian TV showed the beginning of the meeting, which took place in the Boris Yeltsin presidential library. The footage featured Putin and Wiktoff approaching each other in one of the library’s halls, smiling and shaking hands, with Wiktoff also placing his right hands on his heart. Prior to the meeting with Putin, in which Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov and his foreign investment envoy Kiril Dmitriev also participated,³ Witkoff held a separate meeting on April 11 with Dmitriev. The two have earlier met for talks in Saudi Arabia and then in the U.S.⁴ After the April 4 talks in Washington, Dmitriev was asked to take a message back to Putin that the U.S. “needs to know whether you’re serious about peace,” according to Marco Rubio as Trump grew impatient with Putin over the lack of momentum on negotiations toward a ceasefire.⁵ In his latest comments on the need to end the war, Trump wrote on TruthSocial on April 11: “Russia has to get moving.”
2. U.S. and Russian delegations led by Russia’s new ambassador to the United States, Alexander Darchiyev and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Russia and Central Europe Sonata Coulter, respectively, claimed progress after meeting in Istanbul on April 10 for a second round of talks aimed at normalizing the operations of their diplomatic missions. At the meeting the U.S. delegation reiterated concerns about the current Russian policy prohibiting the U.S. Embassy in Moscow from employing local staff. In his turn, Darchiyev stated that the United States and Russia discussed and agreed to measures to facilitate the movement of diplomats and accelerate the granting of diplomatic visas, according to ISW. He also stated that the Russian delegation prioritized discussions about the return of confiscated Russian diplomatic property. While the talks were supposed to be focused on diplomatic missions only, the Russian delegation was also to ask the U.S. to lift sanctions against its flagship airline Aeroflot to resume direct flights with America, according to Reuters.
3. Russia gained 113 square miles of Ukraine’s territory (about 1 Nantucket island) in the past month, though its overall pace of advance declined this week, according to the April 9, 2025, issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. Last week’s gain of 47 square miles (March 25–April 1) was followed April 2–8 by a gain of only 29 square miles, according to the card. This week, Ukraine again continued its fighting withdrawal from Kursk, giving up control of only a single square mile of territory there. At the same time, both Ukrainian and Russian sources confirmed that Ukrainian forces were operating in the neighboring Belgorod region of Russia this week, according to the card. The deceleration of the Russian army’s pace of weekly gains in Ukraine contrasts with Putin’s recent claim that the Russian armed forces are “set to finish them [Ukrainian forces] off.” Putin made this claim even though, as RM staff estimated in a recent news digest, it would take the Russian forces 15 years or more at their recent rate just to capture the entire regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, if the Russian forces were to focus only on these four regions. The gap between Putin’s claim and actual progress on the battlefield may have several causes. One may be that Russia was consolidating its forces in preparation for a major renewed offensive. Another, which may have been overlooked, is Putin’s desire to repeat his success in misleading Trump⁶ on the situation on key parts of the Russian-Ukrainian frontline. If key members of the Trump team take Putin’s most recent claims of imminent victory as fact, that would logically change the administration’s bargaining position in ceasefire or peace negotiations, and it would represent a smart, cheap, low-risk strategy to gain more from a favorable shift in the U.S. position through disinformation than through military achievements on the battlefield.*
4. Bridget Brink, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, is stepping down following increasing policy disagreements with Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with her decision told FT. Her departure also comes amid a deterioration in her working relationship with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the people said. Ukrainian officials said they saw Brink as being too critical of them, particularly of the country’s efforts to root out entrenched corruption, according to FT.
5. The price for Brent fell to a four-year low of below $60 a barrel this week after China and the U.S. escalated their tariff war⁷ and the OPEC+ group pledged to boost output next month, according to Bloomberg. However, the plunge won’t be a game changer for Russia’s ability to finance its war machine as rising revenue from non-energy sectors and rainy-day reserves help offset losses, this news agency estimated. While Russia’s National Wealth Fund has slimmed down since the start of the invasion, it’s still sufficient to make up any shortfall in oil revenue for the next 18–24 months should Russia’s crude cost around $50 a barrel, according to estimates by Bloomberg Economics.
6. The share price of JPMorgan’s EMEA Securities Trust, formerly JPMorgan Russian Securities, trades at five times its net asset value (NAV), having nearly tripled in the last six months, according to investment writer Max King’s estimate published by British weekly investment magazine MoneyWeek.