Top Trump administration official Steve Witkoff met Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, shaking hands with Putin at the start. Putin and Witkoff were set to discuss Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ahead of the meeting, which ended at 10 p.m. Moscow time 3 p.m. ET according to Russian state media TASS. Peskov had referred to the assembly as “a good opportunity” to convey the Russian position to Trump. A possible Putin-Trump meeting may also be on the agenda, state news agency RIA Novosti cited Peskov as saying. The painstaking work continues. Naturally, Witkoff, as a special representative of US President Donald Trump, will convey something from his president to Putin. Putin will listen to it. The conversation will continue on various aspects of the Ukrainian settlement Peskov said, state media TASS reported. Witkoff, who is Trump’s foreign envoy, also met Friday with Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev in St. Petersburg, according to RIA Novosti. Dmitriev later described those discussions as “productive” in a post on X on Friday. The US meetings in Russia come as Ukraine’s key allies gathered Friday in Brussels, where the defense ministers of the United Kingdom and Germany emphasized that Putin has continued his aggression against both military and civilian targets despite claiming to want peace. (CNN)