By Musa Mdluli

MBABANE:”Top United States diplomatic negotiator Steve Witkoff visited Moscow on Wednesday in a last-ditch push to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine before an August 8 deadline set by President Donald Trump”, writes Aljazeera editor Charu Sudan Kasturi in an opinion article published on Thursday.

Charu Sudan Kasturi is a writer and editor who has led multiple award-winning investigations and projects, from the United States and Mexico to India and the Philippines. He is the recipient of a New York Foreign Press Association award, a San Francisco Press Club award and a Pulitzer fellowship and is a Webby nominee.

After Witkoff’s meeting with Putin, the White House said that Russia had sought a meeting with Trump. The US president, the White House said, was open to meeting both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trump, who during his re-election campaign had promised he would be able to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours if he came to power, has so far failed to mediate a truce despite months of hectic diplomacy, direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv, and phone calls with Putin.

Increasingly frustrated by Putin’s unwillingness to agree to a pause in fighting without imposing conditions unacceptable to Ukraine or the West, Trump has threatened a new wave of economic measures punishing Russia if it does not accept a ceasefire.

Since Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US and its allies, including the United Kingdom and the European Union, have imposed more than 21,000 sanctions on Russia’s economy.

The new tariffs Trump has threatened are unlike any of those earlier sanctions, however. They target Russia by hitting out against its trading partners, in the hope that they will stop buying from or selling to Moscow.But these secondary tariffs also carry risks for the US and its allies.