Putin Engages China, India, and Allies in Update on Witkoff Diplomacy | World | london-news-net.preview-domain.com

Putin Engages China, India, and Allies in Update on Witkoff Diplomacy

August 12, 2025

On Friday, President Vladimir Putin engaged in a series of phone calls with the leaders of China, India, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan to update them on his recent discussions with Steve Witkoff, the special envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump.

During the conversation, Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed Beijing’s support for ongoing U.S.-Russia discussions concerning Ukraine, emphasizing that they “will always… encourage peace and dialogue,” while noting that “complex issues do not have straightforward solutions,” as reported by Chinese state media.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared on X that he had a “very good and comprehensive discussion” with his “friend” Putin regarding “the recent developments in Ukraine.” He mentioned their review of the progress in bilateral relations, emphasizing their “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.” Modi confirmed previous reports that Putin plans to visit India later this year.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko also talked with Putin about U.S. peace proposals and the potential for a Trump-Putin summit, which Moscow suggested could occur “in the coming days.” However, U.S. officials have yet to verify these plans.

Trump had given Russia until Friday to cease hostilities or face new sanctions and “secondary tariffs” on its major trading partners. He stated that “great progress was made” during Witkoff’s meeting in Moscow. Nonetheless, when asked on Thursday if his deadline for Putin to agree to a ceasefire still stood, Trump replied, “It’s going to be up to him; we’ll see what he has to say.”

The U.S. president expressed his “very disappointed” feelings toward Putin, leaving uncertainty about whether he would maintain his increasingly hardline stance on Russia while pushing for a swift conclusion to the conflict in Ukraine.

Additionally, on Friday, Putin conversed with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Kazakh President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev, with the Kremlin noting that both Central Asian leaders supported efforts toward a political and diplomatic resolution to the war. Their offices confirmed the talks but did not specify any particular peace plan.

Putin’s outreach followed a call with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, during which the Russian leader briefed him on peace negotiations. Ramaphosa expressed his “full support for peace initiatives aimed at concluding the war and fostering lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine,” according to a summary of their exchange.

Witkoff, who serves as Special Envoy to the Middle East, has made multiple trips to Russia since Trump assumed office in January, with his last visit occurring in April when he met with Putin to discuss renewing direct peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

This latest visit coincided with Trump’s announcement of a new 25% tariff on Indian goods due to New Delhi’s ongoing purchases of Russian oil. Both India and China have emerged as significant purchasers of Russian crude oil since 2022.

While officials in both Moscow and Washington have recently shown cautious optimism about advancements in Ukrainian peace negotiations, the specifics of the meeting between Putin and Witkoff remain unclear, and there is little indication that the Kremlin leader is prepared to abandon his maximalist terms for concluding the war against Ukraine.

Just a week prior, Putin told reporters that the conditions for peace he presented a year ago remain mostly the same, which include Ukraine’s renunciation of occupied territories, a commitment to neutrality, limitations on its military size, and a change of regime in Kyiv.

Regions Calling: Life With No Internet Is the New Normal Текст: Welcome toRegions Calling, your guide to developments beyond the Russian capital from The Moscow Times. In this edition, we examine how frequent — and in some cases permanent — mobile internet outages and restrictions have transformed the lives of ordinary people in Russia’s regions. But first, a look at the latest news: Authorities in the Siberian republics ofKhakassiaandSakha (Yakutia)have cut monetary support to soldiers fighting in Ukraine and their families due to budgetary constraints. Russia’s regions provide one-time payments from their local budgets for signing a military contract, when a soldier receives an injury in combat and in the event of a serviceman’s death. While Sakha authorities did not specify which payments will be aborted, Khakassia will no longer issue one-time payments of 1.1 million rubles ($14,000) to families of deceased soldiers, RFE/RL’s Siberian bureau Sibir.Realiireported. The head of therepublic of Buryatiacalledfor the eradication of cormorants, a large waterbird, from Lake Baikal, citing overpopulation concerns. Different scientists have different positions. Some say [cormorants are] supposed to exist and dont cause any harm. Others say they do. My personal position is that they definitely do, and we must fight them….Not by regulating them, but by eliminating them, Alexei Tsydenov said. Residents of at least two remote settlements have been raising alarm in recent weeks over continued food supply shortages that authorities blame on weather-related disruptions. The village of Nikolskoe, the only inhabited settlement on the Far EastCommander Islands, was leftwithoutfresh supplies of food and necessities, leaving all stores on the island nearly empty. The first delivery of 50 tons of food in over three months reached the island on Thursday,accordingto local media. Residents of Surinda, a reindeer herding settlement in theKrasnoyarsk region,sharedimages of emptying store shelves earlier this week. Locals said the only items still available were spices, tea, cereals and pasta. In Russia’s Regions, Protracted Internet Blackouts Have Long Been the Norm This month, authorities in theUlyanovsk regionintroducedrestrictions on mobile internet access that are due to remain in effect until the end of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The outage was meant to be limited to areas near sensitive government and military facilities, but entire suburbs in the regional capital Ulyanovsk were cut off from mobile internet access, The Moscow Times’ local sources said. Though the Volga River region was the first in the country to impose a permanent mobile internet blackout, recurring cellular internet shutdowns have been a part of daily life in dozens of regions for months, ostensibly for security reasons, according to residents who spoke to MT and local media reports. “It is extremely inconvenient. The jamming is constant. Some parts of the city never have internet. Sometimes I lose GPS while driving and suddenly have no idea where to go next,” said a woman from Ufa, the capital of therepublic of Bashkortostanin the Ural Mountains. She spoke on condition of anonymity. A major oil-refining complex in Ufa owned by Bashneft has been frequentlytargetedby Ukrainian drones, leading to large adjacent areas of the city as well as the city’s only airport being cut off from mobile internet due to security concerns. Jamming of mobile calls is also not uncommon, locals living near the refinery say. “I order taxis through Wi-Fi at home 100% of the time. Otherwise, I use a bus or walk,” said another woman based in Ufa who also requested anonymity. Residents of other regional capitals across Russia have faced a similar plight, with some locals calling their internet-deprived suburbs “an exclusion zone” — as opposed to city centers where internet connectivity is often stable. This is a systemic problem for Russia…We need to come to terms with it and understand that the special military operation is not somewhere 2,000 kilometers away and that we are also participants in these events, Bashkortostan’s head Radiy Khabirovsaidof the outages earlier this month, using the Kremlin-sanctioned term for the war in Ukraine. Ufa residents who spoke with The Moscow Times said the outages have forced them to store more of their money in cash and rely less on taxi apps. Businesses are increasingly switching to SMS messages to schedule appointments and communicate with clients as well. The amount of cash in circulation in Russiaincreasedby 659 billion rubles ($8 billion) between July and September this year, five times more than during the same period last year, according to Central Bank data. Analysts say this trend is directly tied to frequent internet outages that prevent people from paying digitally. The internet shutdowns cost the Russian economy around $295 million per day,accordingto the independent watchdog Internet Defense Society. Bashkortostan alone loses $3.9 million every day. Though many regional administrations have vowed to include banking applications in the so-called “white list” of services meant to remain accessible during shutdowns, users who spoke with MT said they could not connect to these apps most of the time. In addition to banking services and the Mir payment system, “white lists” include government services provider Gosuslugi, Russian tech platform Yandex, social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, as well as online marketplaces Ozon and Wildberries. These services also function inconsistently during shutdowns, users said. The North Caucasus republic ofIngushetia, Russia’s smallest ethnic republic, has been dealing with mobile internet shutdowns since July and the outages have continued since, according to localreports. Ingushetia’s head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatovsaidthis month that he had largely switched to a landline phone due to frequent jamming. “You know, its a more reliable [mode of communication]. Of course, you can’t carry it with you, but in the evening, you can come home and check in with everyone you need,” Kalimatov said during his annual televised call-in show. Eastward in therepublic of Dagestan, mobile internet jamming has also been nearly constant since August. “I have been living in Moscow for 10 years. Upon arriving in Dagestan, you immediately feel as if you’ve ended up in some kind of [Native American] reservation,” a native of Dagestansaidin a message published by local news outlet Chernovik. “There is no working internet, no electricity, no water or gas, the roads are full of potholes, and the healthcare system is struggling,” they added. Mobile internet shutdowns have been recorded in at least half of Russia’s regions every day in November,accordingto the open-source analytical project Russian Internet Monitor. “I have a feeling that people got used to feeling desperate and helpless, though everyone is willing to help when needed,” said a woman in her 20s from Kazan, the capital of therepublic of Tatarstan. The woman, who requested anonymity, also described the frequent experience of “entering anything from a hookah lounge to a hospital” to find a Wi-Fi connection while moving around the city. “[Internet outages] take away the feeling of certainty and security, especially from the older generation…They stop responding to messages, and it is unclear how to communicate with them — they lose the ability to do things in the usual ways, and they completely lose the desire to bother trying,” she told The Moscow Times. “I’m sure this is how generations drift apart,” she added. St. Petersburgactivist Lena Patyayeva wasarrestedfor staging a single-person protest outside a police station in honor of her disappeared friend Seda Suleimanova. “You gave her away to die. Now live with it. Where is Seda Suleimanova?” read the sign that Patyayeva was holding. The activist has beenactively searchingfor Suleimanova since August 2023, when the Chechen woman was forcibly returned from St. Petersburg to her native republic by the Russian police. Some fear Suleimanova may have been killed in a so-called “honor killing” — a practice in which a woman is murdered by a relative, typically a man, for allegedly bringing shame to her family.

rimmaruslan98@gmail.com December 1, 2025

London

Haunted Heirlooms: Kray Twins’ Artifacts Fetch Thousands at Devon Auction

Related posts

Raiffeisen Suspends Sale of Russian Unit as Diplomatic Relations Shift – FT

Daily Departures: Russias Police Force Faces Critical Staff Shortages Amid Declining Morale