Russian general killed in car blast near Moscow as Putin meets US envoy on Ukraine

A senior Russian general died in a car bombing in the Russian city of Balashikha on Friday, authorities say, the same day that US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Witkoff spent three hours meeting with Putin at the Kremlin in Friday, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the meeting, adding that the talks were “constructive and very useful.”

Witkoff’s trip to Russia, the fourth since Trump returned to the White House in January, came at a crunch time as the US president’s self-imposed deadline of ending the war within his first 100 days in office nears.

“This conversation allowed the Russian and US positions to be further brought closer together, not only on Ukraine, but also on a number of other international issues,” Ushakov told reporters in a call.

Ushakov, who is a former Russian ambassador to Washington, was part of the meeting