When Ukrainian and Russian officers met for a second spherical of cease-fire discussions in Istanbul on June 2, it was apparent that there can be no critical negotiation. Ukraine, wanting to fulfill the Trump administration’s need for a settlement, was represented by a high-level delegation headed by its protection minister. Russia, nonetheless, solely despatched low-level diplomats. Aside from opening the door to a new prisoner alternate, the assembly introduced no breakthroughs. As a substitute, the Kremlin introduced the phrases—unchanged for 3 years—for Ukraine’s submission, together with recognition of Russian dominion over 5 occupied Ukrainian areas, the cession of further territory by Ukraine, Ukrainian neutrality, and the de facto de-militarization of its armed forces.
Whereas European representatives got here to Istanbul in an indication of assist for the peace course of, the USA was famous for its absence, proof that it has been sidelined from enjoying a principal function within the negotiations. This can be a far cry from the heightened expectations for the peace course of and a transparent step away from the hopes that attended the preliminary conferences in Might, when U.S. President Donald Trump indicated that he was prepared to return to Istanbul if Russian President Vladimir Putin additionally confirmed up.
Trump has lengthy touted his particular relationship with Putin and made peace in Ukraine a serious foreign-policy goal, however Washington’s absence was stark proof of the failure of the administration’s diplomacy and total method to the Russia-Ukraine struggle. This failure is the product of incompetent negotiations, a lack of know-how of Russia’s true ambitions, and a misreading of Putin’s indicators. The failure finally rests on Trump’s shoulders, nevertheless it has been critically exacerbated by the affect of his foremost emissary to the Kremlin, the beginner diplomat Steve Witkoff.
Witkoff’s ascent into high-stakes diplomacy was one of many best surprises of the second Trump administration. Till final November, Witkoff stood far exterior the foreign-policy course of. His preliminary public function was co-chair of Trump’s inaugural committee. However on Nov. 12, 2024, Trump assigned Witkoff to his first stab at worldwide relations, as Trump’s particular private envoy to the Center East. Initially, and with the outgoing Biden administration’s consent, Witkoff engaged with Israel and Hamas. After Trump’s inauguration, Witkoff’s function turned an official U.S. authorities one.
Witkoff, who has recognized Trump for 4 many years, is a number one Trump loyalist, pal, and golf companion. Considerably, Witkoff provided companionship and ethical assist to Trump throughout his most tough days within the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurgency and when Trump confronted a felony conviction in New York Metropolis in early 2024.
Born within the Bronx, Witkoff studied at Hofstra College on New York’s Lengthy Island, and pursued a legislation profession that morphed into actual property growth and investments that made him a billionaire. Typically partnering with Soviet expat Len Blavatnik, who made his fortune in post-Communist Russia, Witkoff amassed an unlimited portfolio of U.S. actual property, extremely concentrated in New York Metropolis, Miami, and California. Though his firm had some worldwide enterprise actions centered on a number of high-profile investments in London, they characterize a minor portion of the portfolio. Witkoff’s lack of international enterprise expertise made him essentially completely different from the opposite enterprise leaders Trump has tapped to implement U.S. international coverage.
Witkoff greets kinfolk of Israeli hostages in Tel Aviv on Might 13. Jack Guez/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Witkoff’s first stab at diplomacy centered on securing a cease-fire and hostage launch within the Hamas-Israel struggle. Working hand in hand with Brett McGurk, a senior international coverage official within the Biden, first Trump, and Obama administrations, Witkoff efficiently brokered a short-term settlement simply days earlier than Trump’s inauguration. Although the deal, which lasted 60 days, expired and the battle continued, the tag crew of seasoned diplomat and trusted intimate of the incoming president labored properly, bolstering Witkoff’s status.
Quickly after his Center East success, Witkoff’s portfolio was dramatically expanded with the added roles of straight negotiating with Russia and Iran. Aside from historical past’s diplomatic legends—the Austrian Empire’s Klemens von Metternich, for instance, or the USA’ Henry Kissinger—the accountability for a number of, high-stakes worldwide negotiations is never handed to a single official.
Nonetheless, the appointment of somebody with a detailed private connection and direct entry to the president has proved profitable up to now. It labored exceptionally properly in the course of the negotiations over the Abraham Accords, wherein Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, performed a central function whereas counting on a big crew of skilled advisors with long-standing information of the Center East.
But when it got here to Russia, Witkoff shifted gears. As a substitute of working in shut cooperation with U.S. authorities consultants, he ran what was basically a one-man present. Controversially, he averted important engagement with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow or the State Division again in Washington. Like Trump has executed up to now, he even eschewed the usage of a U.S. interpreter or notetaker in his conferences with Putin. Reliance on a Kremlin interpreter meant that he didn’t get pleasure from a nuanced learn of Putin’s unique language, an unprecedented resolution broadly criticized by foreign-policy professionals.
Furthermore, within the first months of negotiations, Witkoff had no contact with the Ukrainian facet. Given his near-total unfamiliarity with Russia, Ukraine, and their lengthy and bitter historical past, Witkoff’s resolution to go it alone meant that he arrived on the Kremlin with little or no information of Ukraine’s respectable pink traces and had no context wherein to evaluate Putin’s claims and indicators.
In a photograph distributed by the Russian state-owned information company Sputnik, Witkoff (left) gestures towards Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout talks in Moscow on April 25. Kristina Kormilitsyna/Sputnilk/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Though Witkoff did search recommendation from such numerous sources as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former U.S. President Invoice Clinton, Witkoff’s lack of regional information and unfamiliarity with the conduct of diplomacy led to a string of errors. In contrast to seasoned negotiators, who communicate opaquely and conduct their work quietly, Witkoff frequently commented on the state of negotiations, typically making definitive and daring assertions of “important progress” that often did not materialize. Simply as considerably, his diplomacy was undermined by his penchant to facet with the Russian narrative and to publicly make unilateral, preemptive concessions to Russia with none proof that the Russians would reciprocate with any concessions of their very own. These unilateral concessions—introduced by Witkoff and different administration officers—included U.S. rejection of Ukraine’s membership in NATO, a deep discount in U.S. assist to Ukraine, and declarations that Ukraine ought to acknowledge Russia’s territorial conquests.
To make sure, Trump has additionally adopted Russia’s line on many features of the struggle. He has hyped the state of negotiations with Russia, suggesting at numerous instances {that a} cease-fire was simply across the nook and would quickly result in a extra everlasting peace. However he has balanced such feedback with occasional complaints about Russian belligerence and intransigence. Not so Witkoff, who seems to consider peace will come if he ingratiates himself with Putin, talks up huge new joint funding partnerships, and praises Russia for its supposed readiness to make main strides towards peace.
Witkoff’s central function in negotiations with Russia had one other dangerous impact. His shut private relationship with Trump meant that Witkoff’s evaluation of Putin’s intentions outmoded these of extra hard-headed consultants. Witkoff thus bolstered Trump’s doubtful perception that Putin might be wooed from his alliance with China by obscure guarantees of U.S. commerce and funding.
Witkoff’s most full explication of his views on Russia, Ukraine, and the struggle got here throughout a March 21 broadcast with the infamous anti-Ukraine pundit Tucker Carlson, recognized for praising Putin’s Russia as a mannequin of prosperity and deriding Ukraine as a “dictatorship.” The interview revealed Witkoff’s surprising lack of information about Ukraine, Putin, and the character of the Russian regime.
Witkoff optimistically steered that “we’re not distant from … a 30-day cease-fire” at the same time as Russia continued a serious army onslaught and pounded civilian targets in Ukrainian cities within the days earlier than he spoke.
What’s extra, Witkoff defended Putin as not a “dangerous man” and a “gracious” and “nice” chief. The envoy was detached to or unaware of Putin’s accountability for greater than 10,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths, the displacement of as many as 10 million individuals, the impunity of Russian troopers and mercenaries who perpetrated abstract executions of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of struggle, and the struggle crime of abducting Ukrainian kids, as documented within the arrest warrant for Putin issued by the Worldwide Prison Court docket.
Much more extremely, Witkoff has uncritically repeated Russian tropes concerning the struggle. In February, he advised CNN that “the struggle didn’t have to occur. It was provoked. It doesn’t essentially imply it was provoked by the Russians.” He augmented Russia’s narrative by telling Carlson that the areas Russia had occupied (whose names he couldn’t recall) had been “Russian-speaking,” implying that this was a marker of loyalty to Moscow and a respectable foundation for Russian annexation.
In actuality, extra Ukrainians have fled the occupied Donbas into Ukraine since 2014 than those that stayed to reside below Russian rule; each Russophone Ukrainians and inhabitants of japanese Ukraine have been closely represented in Ukraine’s fight forces; and polls since Russia’s 2014 invasion have persistently proven Ukrainians from Russian-speaking japanese and southern Ukraine decisively reject the concept of annexation or unification with Russia.
Witkoff additional appeared to simply accept the validity of Russia’s sham referenda on annexation, which came about below martial legislation and press censorship; violated the Geneva Conventions; excluded impartial worldwide election screens; and came about in a local weather of worry of arrest, torture, and execution. Witkoff additionally claimed that every one Russia needs is the territories it presently holds and has no need to annex any further territories or destroy the remainder of the nation. There isn’t a proof that Putin has ever made such a press release.
In brief, Washington’s envoy was doing his finest to lend credibility to Russia’s territorial claims utilizing arguments that displayed no consciousness of Russian ambition and Ukrainian actuality.
U.S. President Donald Trump invitations Witkoff to reply to a query from the media within the Oval Workplace of the White Home on Might 28.Andrew Harnik/Getty Pictures
Following Trump’s inauguration, the USA quickly deserted its function as a supporter of Ukraine and assumed the function of impartial arbiter. Witkoff’s diplomacy, interpretations of the struggle, and echoing of Russian claims have gone past neutrality to align the U.S. place with the Kremlin’s, a minimum of partly. This has raised alarms amongst NATO allies and led Europe to bolster Ukraine, impartial of U.S.-Russian negotiations.
Every of Witkoff’s assignments—Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Hamas, and Iran—would pose huge challenges for any diplomat. However his extravagant guarantees of fast breakthroughs have solely underscored the absence of progress. With about half a 12 months of diplomacy behind him, Witkoff’s document has been meager. His negotiations have gone nowhere on Russia-Ukraine, devolved into an deadlock on Israel-Hamas, and been overtaken by occasions in Iran.
Though Witkoff’s diplomacy has spectacularly failed, he’s more likely to proceed to play a serious function in U.S. diplomacy. In spite of everything, Witkoff’s engagement burnishes Trump’s desired picture as a “peacemaker” and “peace seeker,” roles that permit him to create the impression of U.S. engagement with the world that straddles the chasm between conventional nationwide safety Republicans and MAGA isolationists. Simply as considerably, Witkoff has bolstered a perniciously inaccurate learn of Russia’s actions and intentions and thus diminish the possibilities for a negotiated peace.
Following the reassignment of Nationwide Safety Advisor Michael Waltz, there was hypothesis that Trump could also be contemplating Witkoff for the submit. Given Witkoff’s demonstrated document of incautious concessions, counterproductive diplomacy, dismissal of knowledgeable counsel, and superficial information of worldwide affairs, such an appointment can be an unmitigated catastrophe for the USA. Ultimately, Witkoff’s function as an errant diplomat underscores the truth that the function of civil servants, intelligence consultants, and the foreign-service neighborhood—what Trump disparagingly calls the “deep state”—can’t be changed with private operatives with solely a shallow information of worldwide affairs.
