• Dmitriev arrives in Washington to meet US officials.
• Visit comes amid new US sanctions on Russian oil firms.
• EU nations working with Ukraine on new proposal for ceasefire.

Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, said on Friday he believes his country, the United States and Ukraine are close to a diplomatic solution to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Speaking to CNN after arriving in Washington for talks with US officials, Dmitriev said that a meeting between Donald Trump and Putin had not been cancelled, as the US president described it, and that the two leaders will likely meet at a later date.

The planned summit was put on hold on Tuesday, as Russia’s rejection of an immediate ceasefire cast a cloud over attempts at negotiations. 

Trump said he cancelled the planned meeting with Putin in Budapest because of a lack of progress in diplomatic efforts toward ending the war and a sense that the timing was off.

However, Dmitriev on Friday said, “I believe Russia and the US and Ukraine are actually quite close to a diplomatic solution.”

Dmitriev, in his comments, did not offer details of what this would entail.

European nations are working with Ukraine on a new proposal for a ceasefire in the war along current battle lines, European diplomats told Reuters this week, mainly incorporating ideas already under discussion while pressing to keep the United States in a central role.

“It’s a big move by President Zelenskiy to already acknowledge that it’s about battle lines,” Dmitriev said. 

“You know, his previous position was that Russia should leave completely – so actually, I think we are reasonably close to a diplomatic solution that can be worked out.”

Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump had announced last week that he and Putin would meet soon in Hungary to try to bring an end to the war. 

But Putin has been unwilling to consider concessions. Russia has long demanded that Ukraine agree to cede more territory before any ceasefire.

Dmitriev’s visit to the United States for a long-planned meeting takes place against the backdrop of newly announced US sanctions on two of Russia’s biggest oil companies – a move aimed at pressing Putin to end the war.

Despite the move, Dmitriev said dialogue between Russia and the United States will continue.

“It is certainly only possible if Russia’s interests are taken into account and treated with respect,” Dmitriev earlier told Reuters.

Dmitriev declined to say who he was meeting and predicted that the US oil sanctions would backfire. “They will only lead to gasoline costing more at American gas stations,” Dmitriev said.

The US news outlet Axios reported that Dmitriev would meet Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Miami on Saturday. The Russian state TASS news agency quoted Dmitriev as saying he would also meet other people whom he did not name.

• Authorities have not released the nationalities of victims.
• 16 migrants and one smuggler drown off Bodrum; 2 rescued.
• Nearly 1,400 migrants have so far died in Mediterranean this year.

Sixteen migrants and a people trafficker died when their inflatable dinghy capsized early Friday in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish resort of Bodrum, the coastguard said.

It was the latest in a series of migrant deaths on the short but perilous route between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Samos, Rhodes and Lesbos that serve as entry points to the European Union.

“The dead bodies of 16 illegal migrants and that of a trafficker have been recovered,” the coastguard stated, adding two migrants had been rescued.

The local governor’s office had earlier given a death toll of 14 migrants, stating on X that a migrant had managed to alert the coastguard to the emergency.

One of the two survivors, an Afghan, told rescuers that the vessel had sunk barely 10 minutes after starting to take on water.

He had been forced to swim for six hours to Celebi Island, he added.

Authorities did not give the nationalities of the other migrants. Bodrum lies less than five kilometres (3 miles) from the Greek island of Kos.

“Search and rescue efforts for other irregular migrants considered missing continue with four coast guard boats, one coast guard special diving team and one helicopter,” the governor’s office added.

The Aegean Sea is a frequent transit route for thousands of migrants attempting to cross from North Africa and the Middle East into Europe, particularly from Turkey, which hosts millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The number of irregular migrants caught in Turkey peaked in 2019 with nearly 455,000 people, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, according to the Presidency of Migration Management.

According to the Missing Migrants Project run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), nearly 1,400 migrants have died trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea this year.

Turkey, which signed an agreement with Brussels in 2016 to stem illegal immigration into the European Union, hosts more than 2.5 million refugees on its soil, the vast majority Syrians, say officials.

Journalists who covered the Gaza war shared harrowing experiences of losses and survival, expressing profound disappointment with the global community’s silent response to the killing of media professionals by Israeli forces.

During the International Press Institute (IPI) World Congress and Media Innovation Festival 2025, a panel of journalists discussed the trouble, distress, and heart-wrenching moments they faced during the Gaza war, saying it was a “deep sense of abandonment” where they witnessed the violent assault on the press.

Al Jazeera journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh, who lost his five family members, including his wife, in Israeli strikes and found his surviving daughter under the rubble, asked: “What did my family do?”

Al-Dahdouh said it was a “unique and agonising reality of reporting” that you had to choose between being a “journalist or a human.

He asserted that the international media failed to respond appropriately to the violence. “We were left alone,” he stated, emphasising that much more was required.

The statistics shared by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed that at least 238 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since October 7, 2023.

Rawan Damen, another senior journalist affiliated with Al Araby TV, praised Al-Dahdouh’s balanced reporting, distinguishing between the failure of mainstream international media to address the “genocide” and the efforts of independent outlets and some organisations that did speak out.

Laurent Richard, a French journalist, warned of the grave consequences of inaction, highlighting the “normalisation” of the murder of journalists and a pervasive lack of accountability.

“Before the war, we described Gaza as a large prison; now it is a large cemetery,” said Basel Khalaf, a journalist, while describing the situation of Gaza, urging the global media to move beyond statistics and tell the human stories of Gazan reporters.

Khalaf also outlined the urgent needs of his colleagues in Gaza, including essential equipment, medical treatment for the injured, and freedom for those imprisoned by Israel, imploring the international press to keep the story alive.