Rubio says Witkoff-Zelenskiy meeting 'positive', ideas to be discussed with Russia

US special envoy arrives in St Petersburg to meet Putin as Ukraine seeks to repair ties with Washington

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that US special envoy Steve Witkoff's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was positive and that Witkoff would share the results with Russia.

Rubio also reiterated that Washington had not pulled back Kyiv's ability to access SpaceX's Starlink, a satellite system vital to Ukraine's war effort, contradicting reports that the US government had a role in slowing the service for the Ukrainian military.

Zelenskiy traveled to Oslo to meet Witkoff on Tuesday, as Ukraine seeks to repair ties with the US amid tensions over US military support, intelligence sharing and Ukraine's access to the military version of Starlink.

Witkoff arrived in St Petersburg on Wednesday where he is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, two sources with the visit told Reuters.

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Rubio told reporters in Mumbai during a visit to India that nothing surprising came out of Witkoff's talks with the Ukrainian leader. "He will now, armed with those ideas, be able to go to St Petersburg and share them with the Russian side, and let's see if we can make some progress," he said.

On Starlink, he said: "What I can tell you with certainty is the president of the United States, nor anyone in our system, ever requested that any changes to that system be made."

"We cannot direct a private company as to the decisions they make or do not make," he added. "I'm not aware that we knew about this decision beforehand ... but it's irrelevant. The bottom line is that it is governed by a private commercial contract as to the how their stuff can be used ... And so we'll continue to engage on the matter."

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Elon Musk, ​the CEO of SpaceX, last week said that because the systems were owned and controlled by the US government, any limits on speed or usage were decided by the US military or the US president.

The US under President Donald Trump has largely stopped providing weapons directly to Ukraine but lets European countries buy US weaponry on Kyiv's behalf under a program known as Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL).

It has also provided intelligence and technology that Europe cannot match.