It is hard to imagine that the publication of the transcript of the discussion between Trump’s emissary, Steve Witkoff, and Putin’s adviser, Yuri Ushakov, will not accelerate and widen the cracks that have already appeared in the wall built by the Republican Party around the American president.
And this, all the more so since the White House leader’s aura was already tainted by a lot of other heavy files that follow Donald Trump – from the Republicans’ recent electoral failures, to inflation, and to the scandal regarding the relationship between Trump and the late sexual predator, trafficker and pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.
By the time Bloomberg detonated the “bombshell”, Steve Witkoff’s lack of experience and training in international relations, the pro-Russian emphasis of his approach to negotiating peace in Ukraine, and his hard-to-match servility to both Trump and Putin had already entered folklore.
But the negative perception of Witkoff was fueled by the leak in the press of the conversation that this real estate developer had with one of Russia’s most experienced diplomats (perhaps even future foreign minister, replacing Sergei Lavrov).
With a negotiator’s speech whose strength lies in the fact that he is always ready to please, and overly keen to give the Russian official useful advice on how Putin can make Trump totally indifferent to Ukraine’s needs and posture, as well as to the implications of peace in Ukraine for the continental security architecture, Steve Witkoff didn’t just compromise himself (something he managed half a year ago), but he seriously compromised America’s interests, credibility and the posture of the Washington administration.
It is no wonder that Witkoff’s ‘performance’ immediately drew harsh public reactions from members of the US Congress, including from the Republican camp.
On the other hand, such an intimate close-up on how the current White House administration “negotiates” with the dictatorial regime in Moscow, as seen in the leak, can also have a positive effect: diminishing American influence on the position and posture of Ukraine’s European allies in these peace negotiations.
Especially since, after Witkoff, the last nail in the coffin of the image, posture and interests of the US was compounded by the country’s own president, Donald Trump, when he called his emissary’s approach normal; reducing everything to the image of a businessman selling a product (Ukraine) to a potential customer (Russia).
Basically, Trump admitted that both he and his emissary are perfectly parallel to the subject; that not even a year after his re-election did they understand that he represents the White House, and not Trump Tower; that the “product” they are selling is a sovereign and independent country, inhabited by tens of millions of souls; that the potential “client” is another country, aspiring to become an empire again, in which the leadership is exercised by a notorious oppressor and at the same time by a real serial killer.
After the credibility of Trump’s peace plan was blown up in its initial form and its composition in secret cooperation with the aggressor camp, the inside information we now have about how Witkoff is acting on the ground will probably fantastically undermine the version rewritten in the meantime thanks to the on-the-fly intervention of the Europeans and Ukrainians in the process.
However, it is probably no coincidence that also on Wednesday, in the German and Spanish press, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte suggested two things:
- At the organization’s Washington Summit, it was decided that Ukraine’s accession is irreversible.
- And that Russia has nothing to say, much less a veto right regarding who joins and who does not join NATO.
In April, given how low the level of negotiations carried out by Witkoff with the Russian side, including directly with Putin, had already descended by then, and especially not being able to imagine that the level would go even lower than that, I succumbed to the temptation to anticipate that this unfortunate special emissary would be withdrawn from the role played in the Russian-Ukrainian file, being not a matter of if, but of when.
It’s been more than seven months since then, and Witkoff is in office, but that doesn’t mean yet that the prediction is no longer valid.
It “only” means that, by not parting with Steve Witkoff so far, Donald Trump has only sunk even deeper into the mire through which Putin is walking him.
The leak of the Witkoff-Usakov conversation to the press indicates a collapse so deep into the underground of war diplomacy that it makes the president and his emissary look like two miners trapped in the lowest gallery.
- PS: A few years ago, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, in his first term, John Bolton, recounted in his memoirs a memorable episode: before leaving for Helsinki to meet Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump had asked his chief of staff if Finland still belongs to Russia. In a recent interview with The Economist immediately after the appearance in the press of the Trump-Putin peace plan in 28 points, Bolton did what a professional master of his memories and a fine connoisseur of those with whom he worked does: he told the story with Trump, Finland and Russia once again.
- As far as we can see, the major problem is not only that the architect of peace, Donald Trump, has limited knowledge, but in terms of the structure in this complicated process, he hasn’t the slightest clue.
