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The remark from Trump’s envoys has sparked widespread criticism given the situation in Ukraine.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Vladimir Putin at the Constantine Palace on Wednesday to push a three-way peace framework for Ukraine, The Moscow Times reported.
During the sit-down, Witkoff thanked the Russian leader for freeing Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old Michigan teacher imprisoned on mercenary charges. The envoy reached for praise rarely heard from Western officials.
“You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that. I commend you,” Witkoff told Putin, according to video footage cited by Ukrainska Pravda. Putin noted that Hubbard was already preparing to board a flight home.
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Washington defends envoy
Back home, Donald Trump dodged questions outside the White House about whether he agreed with the remark. He emphasized ongoing negotiations to stop the fighting and praised Moscow for releasing an American who thought he faced life behind bars.
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Vice President JD Vance mounted an aggressive defense of the trip. “His job is to go over there and get a job done,” Vance told reporters, dismissing criticism over polite language.
The White House backed that practical logic. “I agree with Steve Witkoff saying something nice to a person who just released an American hostage,” Vance added, insisting that bringing a citizen home matters far more than picking apart diplomatic courtesy.
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Bumpy road ahead
The warm exchange in St. Petersburg landed at an awkward moment. Less than a week earlier, United Nations monitors recorded 328 civilians killed and 2,105 injured in Ukraine during September, the highest September toll since the full-scale invasion began.
Before traveling to St. Petersburg, Witkoff spent Tuesday in Oslo presenting Ukrainian and European officials with proposals to end the war. Ukraine accepted the framework, Al Jazeera reported.
Moscow subsequently offered to resume three-way meetings in mid-November. Yet Putin aide Yuri Ushakov quickly tempered expectations, saying European and Ukrainian ideas contained “not all that much that was useful for a settlement in Ukraine.”
