American and Ukrainian negotiators met in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for a second round of negotiations aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, as Kyiv’s trust in Washington was again tested by the Trump administration.

Steve Witkoff, the US president’s special envoy for Russia, has echoed longtime Kremlin talking points and falsehoods about Ukraine and said he “l(fā)iked” Russian President Vladimir Putin and deemed him “super smart” after meeting him in Moscow this month.

“I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy,” Witkoff said on a podcast with rightwing media personality Tucker Carlson, aired on Friday night. Witkoff falsely described Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine as wanting to join Russia and dismissed European postwar security efforts as “a posture and a pose”.