March 20, 2025 (EIRNS)—There is a “great rapport” between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy. In yesterday’s appearance on Bloomberg TV, Witkoff described the March 18 phone call between the two Presidents as “epic” and “transformational.... President Trump and President Putin were in sync with one another, the call was outcome-oriented.”
When the matter of the Russian Defense Ministry’s report that its air defenses had shot down its own drones headed for Ukrainian energy infrastructure after receiving an order to halt such attacks, Witkoff said: “I tend to believe that President Putin is operating in good faith.” Asked about the possibility of Trump and Putin meeting in person in Saudi Arabia, Witkoff said that “my best bet would be that it’s likely to happen.”
Otherwise, he said that more progress was made on March 18 than in the “last three-and-a-half years,” with important “trust-building” steps being taken now. The two leaders “went into how you would put the finishing touches on a full-on ceasefire,” with technical teams expected to meet in Saudi Arabia beginning March 24 or 25. He ventured that a complete ceasefire might be obtained within “a couple of weeks” and that “everything else will be a detail: sanction relief and all the other things that go with a full-on peace treaty,”
