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Steve Witkoff didn’t stay long in the Russian capital earlier this week.

According to footage posted of his motorcade leaving and returning to Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, he was here for little more than 12 hours. 

And for most of that, it seems, he was left waiting.

Witkoff, a former property mogul who has become Donald Trump’s chief negotiator, had been dispatched to Moscow to deliver the US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire to Vladimir Putin.

His visit had been scheduled near the start of the week, following the US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia. 

But after arriving around lunchtime on Thursday, he was left twiddling his thumbs for at least eight hours before being called into the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin was apparently too busy meeting someone else – Belarusian leader Aleksander Lukashenko – for a hastily arranged state visit that had been announced the day before.

Was ally’s visit a classic Putin power play?

We don’t know for sure if the timing of Lukashenko’s visit was deliberate, but it certainly didn’t feel like a coincidence. 

Instead it felt like a classic Putin power play. 

The Kremlin leader doesn’t like to be backed into a corner and told what to do, especially on his own turf.

This felt like a message to the Americans – I’m the boss, I set the schedule and I’m not beholden to anyone.

He did eventually grant Witkoff that all-important face time, once night had fallen and behind closed-doors.

We don’t know how long they spoke for, nor the exact details of their discussion, but I think we can make a pretty good guess given Vladimir Putin’s comments earlier in the evening.

At a press conference alongside Lukashenko, he made it abundantly clear that he’ll only sign up to a ceasefire if he gets something in return.

And it’s not just one thing he wants. 

Lukashenko and Putin spoke to journalists from Belarus and Russia at the Kremlin / Reuters

All Russia’s red lines remain

By the sounds of things, he still wants everything.

His comment regarding the “root causes” of the conflict suggests all of Russia’s red lines remain – no NATO membership for Ukraine, no NATO troops as peacekeepers, and for Russia to keep all the territory it has seized. 

According to Russian media outlet Radio Mayak, Putin’s meetings in the Kremlin finished at 1.30am.

Around half an hour later, Witkoff was back at the airport – leaving Russia, it seems – not with Putin’s agreement but with a list of demands.

It’s now up to Donald Trump to decide what to do next.

Putin kept Trump’s man Witkoff waiting / Reuters