White House envoy Steve Witkoff was in Russia on Friday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin after peace talks with Ukraine stalled out in recent weeks, ‘frustrating’ President Donald Trump.

‘This is another step in the negotiating process towards a ceasefire,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said of the meeting. ‘I think the president has been quite clear that he’s been continually frustrated with both sides of this conflict, and he wants to see this fighting, and he wants the war to end.’

Russian media broadcast images of Putin and Witkoff meeting at the presidential library in St. Petersburg. 

Leavitt said the U.S. had ‘leverage’ over Ukraine and Russia to pressure them to agree to peace.

‘We believe we have leverage in negotiating a deal… And we’re going to use that leverage. And the president is determined to see this through,’ Leavitt said.

Trump has demanded that both sides agree to an immediate 30-day ceasefire while they hash out a longer peace deal. Ukraine has agreed to this, while Russia has not. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed Ukraine had found two Chinese men fighting on behalf of Russia within their borders, a development that would suggest Russia is receiving direct manpower aid from both North Korea and China. 

Zelenskyy said at least 155 Chinese citizens were fighting for Russia as he accused Putin of ‘prolonging the war’ — a claim the Kremlin denied Thursday, stating that China takes a ‘balanced position’ to the war and that ‘Zelenskyy is wrong.’ Fox News Digital has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for further comment.   

Ahead of Witkoff’s meeting with Russian officials, Trump ramped up pressure on Putin, writing on Truth Social: ‘Russia has to get moving. Too many people are DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war – a war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!’

Trump said on March 31 that he was ‘pissed off’ with the Russian leader and threatened to put ‘secondary tariffs’ on Russia’s oil exports, its financial lifeline for the war effort. That could mean sanctioning countries that buy Russian oil or cracking down on its ‘shadow fleet’ of tankers carrying oil across the globe in disguise.

Trump has previously aired out complaints about Zelenskyy, too, calling him a ‘dictator without elections.’ A public White House meeting last month erupted into a near-shouting match where Zelenskyy abruptly left the premises. 

Ukraine agreed to both the unconditional ceasefire and a more tailored maritime ceasefire, but Russia has made a fresh round of demands, including the lifting of some sanctions. 

‘We are making progress. We hope that we are getting relatively close to getting a deal between Russia and Ukraine to stop the fighting,’ Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday. 

The U.S. and Russia carried out a prisoner exchange deal that saw the return of ballerina and U.S.-Russian citizen Ksenia Karelina to the U.S. on Friday. Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in prison at the start of the war in 2022 for donating $51 to a Ukrainian charity. 

On Thursday, U.S. and Russian officials met in Istanbul to discuss reopening operations at each other’s embassies. 

The St. Petersburg gathering is Witkoff’s third meeting with Putin this year. Over the weekend he will head to Oman to negotiate with Iran in nuclear talks.

Ahead of Friday’s meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was ‘no need to expect breakthroughs’ and the ‘process of normalizing relations is ongoing.’

Reuters contributed to this report.

President Trump said on Friday that the first physical examination of his second term went well, and overall he feels he’s in ‘very good shape.’

The president told reporters on board Air Force One while en route to his home in West Palm Beach Friday evening that the yearly presidential physical at Walter Reed Medical Center showed he has a ‘good heart, a good soul,’ and ‘overall, I think I’m in very – I felt I was in very good shape.’ 

He also took a cognitive test.

‘I don’t know what to tell you other than I got every answer right,’ the president told reporters.

He added, ‘I think it’s a pretty well-known test. Got it all right. I’ve taken the cognitive test, I think, four times and gotten nothing wrong. That’s what the American people want. Biden refused, Kamala refused.’ 

He also said that doctors gave him ‘a little bit’ of advice on lifestyle changes that could improve his health without going into detail. 

Biden’s yearly presidential exam at Walter Reed last year didn’t include a cognitive test. 

The former president’s mental abilities became a concern during the presidential election last year after he struggled in a June debate against Trump, which led to former Vice President Kamala Harris taking over as the Democratic nominee. 

Trump said he expected the report from the exam to be released by Sunday. 

The president was at Walter Reed for five hours undergoing ‘every test you can imagine.’

‘I was there for a long time,’ Trump said. ‘I think I did very well.’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday that a readout of the exam would be released ‘as soon as we possibly can.’

The White House earlier this week promised to release the full results of Trump’s examination. 

‘I have never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social before the exam earlier this week. 

The exam was also his first presidential physical since his ear was grazed by a bullet during an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July. 

Both Biden and Trump’s health have come under increased scrutiny as they are the two oldest U.S. presidents to ever serve, and Trump became the oldest president to be sworn into office in January. 

At least 26 Americans held hostage abroad have been freed since President Donald Trump entered the Oval Office in January. Those who gained their freedom include a ballerina, a teacher and a mechanic, among others.

Ryan Corbett and William McKenty

On Jan. 21, 2025, just one day after Trump’s second term began, Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were released from Taliban captivity in Afghanistan. While Corbett and McKenty were freed under Trump, the deal that secured their release was completed by the Biden administration.

Corbett and his family moved to Afghanistan in 2010, where they lived in Kabul and Jalalabad. According to a website set up by his family, Corbett did work for NGOs, which focused on education, birth and life-saving skills. He also started a project in 2017, Bloom Afghanistan, with the goal of strengthening the country’s private sector. In 2021, the Corbett family evacuated as the Taliban took control of the country. Corbett returned to Afghanistan a year later and was captured by the Taliban, which his family suspects was because of his ‘value as political leverage.’

There aren’t many details on McKenty or exactly why he was in Afghanistan. According to the BBC, his family asked for privacy.

Anastasia Nuhfer

Anastasia Nuhfer, who was detained in Belarus during the Biden administration, gained her freedom Jan. 26, 2025. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Nuhfer’s release, he did not give details on when she was detained or why. However, according to The Associated Press, a former high-ranking Belarusian official said the arrest was linked to 2020 protests against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. 

Six unnamed American citizens

Special envoy Ric Grenell secured the release of six Americans after meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Grenell posted a photo of himself and the men on a plane and said that they ‘couldn’t stop thanking’ Trump when speaking to him on the phone. The men were not identified.

Keith Siegel

After spending 484 days as a hostage in Gaza, Keith Siegel was released as part of a ceasefire deal Feb. 1, 2025. Siegel was taken from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. His wife, Aviva, was also taken hostage but was released in November 2023. 

On April 8, Siegel, who has credited Trump with saving his life, thanked the president during an NRCC event in Washington, D.C.

‘President Trump, I am here, and I am alive. President Trump, you saved my life,’ Siegel said. He also asked Trump to continue working to secure the freedom of the 59 remaining hostages in Gaza.

Marc Fogel

American schoolteacher Marc Fogel was released from Russian captivity Feb. 11, 2025, more than three years after he was detained. Fogel was carrying less than one ounce of medical marijuana, according to his family’s website, which he used for severe pain. The Fogel family criticized former President Joe Biden’s handling of Marc’s case, especially in light of his work to release WNBA player Brittney Griner, who was also arrested for having marijuana. 

On July 13, 2024, Fogel’s mother, Malphine, attended a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Marc’s hometown. She spoke with Trump, who promised to bring her son home.

Trump invited Marc and Malphine to attend his address to a joint session of Congress in March 2025.

Unnamed American

On Feb. 12, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that an American ‘unjustly detained in Belarus’ had been released. The statement did not include details or identifying information about the hostage. In a press release, Rubio affirmed the administration’s commitment to releasing Americans held hostage across the globe.

Sagui Dekel-Chen

On Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli American Sagui Dekel-Chen was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists from his home at Kibbutz Nir Oz. He was shot in the shoulder during the massacre and endured torture while in captivity.

Dekel-Chen spent almost 500 days as a hostage in Gaza and gained his freedom in February 2025. While he was in captivity, his wife gave birth to their third child. He only learned about his daughter’s birth after being released.

10 unnamed Americans

On March 13, 2025, 10 unidentified Americans, including veterans and military contractors, were released from captivity in Kuwait. According to The Associated Press, the American citizens were detained on drug charges.

George Glezmann

Delta Airlines mechanic George Glezmann spent more than two years as a hostage in Gaza after being detained by the Taliban in December 2022. According to senators John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both Democrats from Georgia, Glezmann went to ‘Afghanistan for a five-day trip to explore the cultural landscape and rich history of the country.’ The two senators advocated for Glezmann’s release, which eventually occurred March 20, 2025.

Faye Hall

The Taliban released Faye Hall in March 2025, though it is unclear when she was detained. CBS News reported that Hall was arrested on charges of using a drone without authorization.

The Trump administration posted a video of Hall thanking the president for her release. In the video, Hall said she had ‘never been so proud to be an American citizen.’

Ksenia Karelina

Russian American ballet dancer Ksenia Karelina was released from detention April 10, 2025, after being wrongfully detained for over a year. Karelina was arrested and sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony after donating approximately $50 to a Ukrainian charity.

‘Mr. Trump, I’m so, so grateful for you bringing me home,’ a teary-eyed Karelina said upon her arrival in the U.S. ‘I never felt more blessed to be American.’

Christopher Guly contributed to this report.

Delegates from the United States and Iran are holding talks in Oman on Saturday in a delicate effort to restart negotiations over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program. 

The talks, between a mediator to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, come nearly seven years after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. Since then, indirect talks between the two adversaries have made zero progress.

Trump has imposed new sanctions on the Islamic Republic as part of his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign and has suggested military action remained a possibility. Despite this, the president has said he still believed a new deal could be reached by writing a letter to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which he sent early last month. 

Khamenei, meanwhile, has warned that Iran would respond to any U.S.-led attack with an attack of its own.

‘They threaten to commit acts of mischief, but we are not entirely certain that such actions will take place,’ the supreme leader said. ‘We do not consider it highly likely that trouble will come from the outside. However, if it does, they will undoubtedly face a strong retaliatory strike.’

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei called such threats against Iran ‘a shocking affront to the very essence of International Peace and Security.’

‘Violence breeds violence, peace begets peace. The US can choose the course…; and concede to CONSEQUENCES,’ he wrote on X.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has rejected direct negotiations with the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program.

‘We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,’ Pezeshkian said in televised remarks during a Cabinet meeting. ‘They must prove that they can build trust.’

Once allies, both countries have been hostile to one another for nearly half a century, following the 1979 Islamic Revolution that saw the creation of a theocratic government led by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose rule was cemented in a CIA-led coup in 1953, had fled Iran before the revolution, ill with cancer, as demonstrations swelled against his rule. Late in 1979, university students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that severed diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S.

In the decades since, Iran-U.S. relations have see-sawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy, with relations peaking when Tehran made the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers before Trump withdrew from the deal, sparking more tensions in the Mideast that persist today.

Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 661 pounds. The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s program put its stockpile at 18,286 pounds as it enriches a fraction of it to 60% purity.

U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has ‘undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.’

Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60%, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.