Naive Witkoff couldn’t outwit Putin – this Ukraine deal is a Russian dream ...Middle East

Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East and Ukraine, is a highly successful real estate developer. He is not a diplomat.

His forays to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin have painfully revealed his inexperience. He lacks knowledge of Russia and Ukraine, and how Putin negotiates. He unquestioningly repeats Russian talking points. 

The 28-point plan he apparently agreed with his Kremlin counterpart, Kirill Dmitriev, a financier rather than a diplomat, betrays his continued naivety about the basis for a peace settlement in Ukraine.

According to details of the plan, it envisages huge concessions on the part of Ukraine and none on the part of Russia.

Ukraine would surrender the entire Donbas region, including areas that Russia does not currently occupy. It would cut the size of its army by half and accept restrictions on its weapons so that it could not strike into Russia. It would also forgo US military assistance and no foreign troops could be based in Ukraine. 

Russia, meanwhile, would be reintegrated into the global economy with the lifting of Western sanctions, welcomed back to the G7, making it the G8 again, and take back most of its frozen assets.

In addition, Kyiv would agree to the elevation of Russian as an official state language. Since independence in 1991, Ukrainian has been the sole state language even though Russian is still widely spoken in some parts of the country. Ukraine would also lift its ban on the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church that has supported the war and is seen by Kyiv as a tool used by Moscow to create divisions in Ukrainian society.

These terms reflect a maximalist Russian wishlist. For Ukraine to accept them would mean its surrender. However, Moscow is still very far away from being able to break Ukraine’s resistance to fight despite its slow and hugely costly advances on the battlefield and its intensified air campaign using drones and missiles to destroy Ukraine’s energy sector and inflict misery on the population as temperatures fall.

The development of this peace plan comes as a surprise. Washington did not consult with its European allies but sent a military delegation to Kyiv to work on a path to peace. It is not clear whether the delegation headed by US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll was using the Witkoff plan as the basis for its discussion.

Trump appeared to have lost confidence in his ability to persuade Putin to negotiate an end to the war that would require both Russia and Ukraine to make compromises. He had given considerable inducements to Moscow, including an assurance that the US would not support Ukraine joining Nato, and that there would be no US peacekeepers deployed to Ukraine in the event of a deal. He also signalled Washington’s readiness to recognise Crimea as part of Russia.

However, this was not enough for Putin. He appeared to sense weakness on the part of Trump and concluded that continuing to fight in the hope of defeating Ukraine was the better option.

Trump has apparently said that he approves of the Witkoff plan. But he must also be aware that Witkoff’s judgement is faulty on Russia’s willingness to negotiate. He persuaded Trump that it was worth inviting Putin to Alaska since he was sure that Moscow wanted to end the war and understood the need for both sides to make concessions.

Putin accepted the invitation but was not prepared to offer any compromises on his conditions for ending the war. This was an embarrassing failure for Trump and the meeting ended early with no results. Trump then tasked National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio with preparing for another meeting with Putin. Rubio concluded after speaking to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, that the US and Russian positions on Ukraine were too far apart and advised Trump not to proceed with the second summit. 

Trump now appears to be trying again to exert pressure on Ukraine to give up on its red lines and accept that its defeat is inevitable. Putin reportedly told him that if Ukraine would not surrender, he would destroy the country.

Ukraine is now rocked by a corruption scandal after details emerged of senior officials, including government ministers taking kickbacks worth around $100 million from contractors working for Ukraine’s nuclear energy body, Energoatom. The alleged ringleader is a close associate of President Volodymyr Zelensky. 

The corruption investigation is set to reveal more details and could increasingly call into question Zelensky’s authority at home and abroad.

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However, Ukraine is still fighting a war and will not allow political struggle at home to break the country’s determination to resist.

Trump and Witkoff will continue to hear from Ukrainians and Europeans that the peace terms they have in mind are unacceptable and that the only way forward is to put greater pressure on Russia to force Putin to tone down his demands. There will also be opposition in the US Congress.

The latest US peace plan is dead on arrival.

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