US President Donald Trump’s special envoy said Monday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was open to a “permanent peace” deal with Ukraine, following talks seeking to end the more than three-year war.

Trump has been pressing Moscow and Kyiv to agree to a ceasefire but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin, despite repeated negotiations between Russian and US officials.

On Friday, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Saint Petersburg — their third meeting third since the Republican leader returned to the White House in January.

Witkoff said during a Fox News interview televised Monday that he sees a peace deal “emerging,” and that two key Putin advisers — Yuri Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev — were in the “compelling meeting.”

“Putin’s request is to get to have a permanent peace here. So beyond the ceasefire, we got an answer to that,” Witkoff said, acknowledging that “it took a while for us to get to this place.”

“I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large.”

He added that business deals between Russia and the United States were also part of the negotiations.

“I believe there’s a possibility to reshape the Russian-United States relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities, that I think give real stability to the region too,” he said.

Despite a flurry of diplomacy, there has been little meaningful progress on Trump’s main aim of achieving a Ukraine ceasefire.

Putin last month rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for a full and unconditional pause in the conflict, while the Kremlin has made a truce in the Black Sea conditional on the West lifting certain sanctions.

AFP

It was anger, sorrow and bitterness as the Zike community of Bassa Local Government Area (LGA) of Plateau State laid to rest the 51 victims of the recent attacks on the area.

The victims were gunned down early Monday when the perpetrators stormed the village and started shooting sporadically, leading to scores of deaths in what has become a recurring incident in the state.

At the solemn event, members of the community recalled how the incident happened, describing it as “disheartening”.

“I can tell you the situation is very disheartening,” a community leader, Davidson Malison, said, adding that “we are still searching for more corpses.”

“Something needs to be done to put an end to this,” Davidson said.

For a women leader, Mary Dikwa, the situation has gone out of hand.

“They have been killing us in this our community, and several times, they will come and attack us,” the Irigwe women leader said.

“They have been coming and killing, killing us every time. We are tired of this killing. Enough is enough. Our children are dying, our husbands are dying. Our crops have been razed down by this herdsmen,” she added.

Monday’s carnage came despite reassurances from government authorities and less than two weeks after a similar dastardly killing left over 50 people dead and several others nursing injuries.

Irked by the recurrent deadly attacks on the state, President Bola Tinubu ordered security agencies to go after the killers, describing the latest wave of assault on the North-Central state as devastating.

“I have instructed security agencies to thoroughly investigate this crisis and identify those responsible for orchestrating these violent acts,” the president said in a statement by his spokesman Bayo Onanuga. “We cannot allow this devastation and the tit-for-tat attacks to continue. Enough is enough.”

The Presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress have dismissed the prospect of any opposition coalition unseating President Bola Tinubu in 2027, describing recent moves by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, as futile and politically opportunistic.

Their reactions followed the high-profile visit by Atiku and El-Rufai—accompanied by former governors Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto), Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Jibrilla Bindow (Adamawa), and Achike Udenwa (Imo)—to former President Muhammadu Buhari at his Kaduna residence last week.

Although Atiku maintained the visit was merely a post-Sallah courtesy call, political observers and members of the ruling party believe it was part of broader opposition coalition talks aimed at weakening Tinubu’s political base.

“There is a plan for the major political parties to come together and form a strong opposition. But it is not part of our visit,” Atiku told reporters.

In recent weeks, concerns have risen within the APC over speculated coalition efforts and the potential exit of the Congress for Progressive Change bloc from the party, following defections to the Social Democratic Party.

But the APC’s National Secretary, Senator Ajibola Bashiru, waved off the speculations in a phone interview with The PUNCH, questioning the credibility of the so-called CPC defection narrative.

“It is not true. Which CPC bloc did you people say is leaving? Was El-Rufai or Atiku a CPC member? Is our Vice National Chairman (North-West), Garba Datti Mohammed, and even former Governor Al-Makura not in the CPC? Have you heard any of them saying he is leaving?” Bashiru queried. “I don’t know why the media keeps giving these sorts of people unnecessary attention.”

Also reacting, President Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, criticised the coalition talks, dismissing them as a desperate power grab by political misfits with no shared ideology.

“This coalition is an association to grab power,” Bwala said. “That’s why you will hear Peter Obi say they are only there to grab power. Tomorrow, he will say he is considering joining. As for my senior brother, El-Rufai, I like what he is doing. He is using them to play ping pong.”

Bwala added that internal resistance within the Peoples Democratic Party had already disrupted El-Rufai’s attempts to lure the opposition into the SDP.

“When El-Rufai came, he thought he would move all of them to SDP. But His Excellency (Sule Lamido) screamed, ‘Hold it there!’ He reminded them that it was the PDP that made El-Rufai minister twice and gave him political relevance. Now, he wants to drag them out? We’re not going anywhere,” Bwala recounted.

The Presidency insists that despite the rising political noise, President Tinubu remained focused on governance and would not be distracted by alliances it described as unstable and self-serving.

Credit: PUNCH