Donald Trump has claimed “great progress was made” during talks on ending the war in Ukraine between his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday.

The three-hour talks came two days before a deadline the US president set for Russia to reach a peace deal in the war or face fresh sanctions.

“My special envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin,” Trump wrote on social media. “Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European allies. Everyone agrees this war must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come.”

Trump gave no further details of what was discussed, and some analysts will be wary of reading too much into the comments, after multiple previous claims by Trump that Putin was ready to negotiate resulted in little progress. Putin has given little indication he is ready to make concessions or is willing to adjust Russia’s core war aims.

However, there have been unconfirmed reports in recent days that the Kremlin could propose a halt to long-range strikes by both sides as an offer to Trump. It is not yet known if the possibility was discussed during Wednesday’s Kremlin talks.

On Wednesday evening, Trump called Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who took the call while travelling back to Kyiv from a visit to frontline areas in the north-east of the country.

“Our joint position is very clear: the war has to end, and it has to be a just ending,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media after the call. “European leaders also took part in the call and I am grateful to each of them for support. We discussed what had been said in Moscow. Ukraine has to defend its independence. We all need a long-lasting and reliable peace. Russia must finish the war that it started.”

Zelenskyy did not elaborate further on “what was said in Moscow”. Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov described the Moscow talks as “useful and constructive”, adding that it was only after Witkoff reported back to Trump that it would be possible to say more about the outcome of the meeting.

“We sent certain messages particularly on the Ukraine issue. Some messages were also received from President Trump,” Ushakov told journalists in Moscow.

Trump had promised to introduce secondary tariffs on countries that import Russian oil if no progress was made towards a peace deal by Friday. However, already on Wednesday, he issued an executive order imposing an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods, citing India’s continuing imports of Russian oil.

India’s external affairs ministry said it was “extremely unfortunate that the US should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest”.

A senior administration official said further tariffs could come on Friday. “The meeting with Russia and special envoy Witkoff went well. The Russians are eager to continue engaging with the United States. The secondary sanctions are still expected to be implemented on Friday,” said the official.

Witkoff arrived in Moscow early on Wednesday and was pictured taking an early morning stroll through a park in central Moscow with Kirill Dmitriev, a Kremlin envoy who has played a key role in negotiations so far. Russian agencies reported that he left Russia early on Wednesday evening.

The visit is Witkoff’s fifth trip to Moscow in his capacity as Trump’s lead negotiator with the Kremlin, but the first since Trump began taking a tougher line on Russia. Trump previously cut short an earlier 50-day deadline to Putin, claiming he saw no desire in the Kremlin to change its behaviour and calling recent strikes that killed civilians in Kyiv “disgusting”.

After Trump made the threat of further sanctions, the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev claimed the harsh rhetoric could lead to a direct conflict between Russia and the US. In response, Trump issued an order for two nuclear submarines to be repositioned.

Both Trump and Kyiv have been calling for a full and unconditional ceasefire to allow negotiations to begin, but if a pause in long-range strikes is on the table it could offer welcome breathing space to both sides.

Ukraine has hit Russian energy and military infrastructure with long-range drones, and caused aviation chaos in Russia as airports are forced to close during the drone attacks.

Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes against different Ukrainian cities continue on an almost nightly basis. Overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, a recreational centre in the southern Zaporizhzhia region was hit, killing two people and injuring 12, according to the regional governor, Ivan Fedorov.

On some nights Russia sends up to 500 long-range kamikaze drones into Ukraine, and 72 people have been killed in Kyiv alone since May.

Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, is also expected to visit Kyiv in coming days although no firm date has yet been set for the trip.

Witkoff, a real estate lawyer, has no previous diplomatic experience, and his solo travels to Russia have alarmed some other Ukraine allies who fear he may be being played by Putin. In interviews, he has spoken warmly of the rapport he has with the Russian president and said Trump was “touched” by an oil painting of the US president given to him as a gift through Witkoff.

“This is the kind of connection that we’ve been able to re-establish through, by the way, a simple word called communication,” Witkoff said in an interview with Tucker Carlson.

Zelenskyy has said he wants to meet with Putin in a leaders’ summit moderated by either Trump or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey to discuss a negotiated settlement, but the Kremlin has so far dismissed the idea. Instead, it has sent a low-level delegation headed by the former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky to a series of direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul. The last round of talks, in July, broke down after less than an hour.