huffingtonpost - 10 days ago

Steve Witkoff and Vladimir PutinDonald Trump’s decision to send his envoy to Russia to try and sell the US’s peace deal for Ukraine is like sending a “lamb to slaughter”, analysts have said.Steve Witkoff – and senior adviser, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner – touched down in Moscow on Tuesday for a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin.It comes after Ukraine and its allies watered down the US’s 28-point peace plan for resolving the conflict in eastern Europe in November over fears it was too pro-Russia.Recent reports also revealed Witkoff had coached a senior Kremlin high official on how to approach talks with Trump, sparking further fears Moscow had a heavy influence over the peace proposals.European and Ukrainian negotiators have now turned it into a 19-point plan for peace – which Witkoff now has to encourage the Kremlin to back.But analysts fear that his visit will be futile.Dr Simon Bennett, the director of the civil safety and security unit at the University of Leicester, told HuffPost UK that Putin will “exploit a stupefied Witkoff”.He said: “The Americans seem determined to once again sideline Europe by sending Steve Witkoff – a man eminently unsuited to international diplomacy – to talk to the Moscow warmonger.“Witkoff’s ignorance of international politics and diplomacy renders him highly vulnerable to manipulation by Putin. A lamb to the slaughter.”He claimed: “Frankly, Witkoff’s visit is nothing more than political theatre – something for Trump to boast about and use to humiliate Europe further.”Dr Bennett suggested the US also had no right to negotiate on Ukraine’s behalf, saying: “This is not Washington’s war. It is Ukraine’s war. Given that Washington under Trump is withdrawing from the fight it has absolutely no right to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine and its allies.“The current administration’s attitude to the Russia-Ukraine war and world affairs in general attests to its arrogance.”Chatham House’s senior consulting fellow of the Russia and Eurasia programme, Keir Giles, claimed that the west still does not understand Moscow.He said: “It doesn’t matter how often it is repeated, this Russian understanding of what ‘peace talks’ and ‘ceasefire agreements’ are for still bewilders some Western counterparts.”Writing on LinkedIn, he said: “Again and again (Georgia, Syria, Ukraine) Russia gets what it wants because the aims are fundamentally different. While the counterparty wants to end the war, Russia wants to win it.”Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump s special envoy Steve Witkoff shake hands during their meeting at the Kremlin, in Moscow, on Aug. 6, 2025. The CEO of the US-based Hope for Ukraine, Yuriy Boyechko, told the Kyiv Post that this was a “waste of time and a diplomatic misstep” from Witkoff.He said the US envoy has “consistently failed to produce tangible breakthroughs” with his trips to Russia, as the Kremlin just use his visits as an “opportunity to buy time and stall progress”.He insisted Russia’s core goal to absorb Ukraine has not shifted at all and any nod towards peace is a “short-term tactical manoeuvre” rather than a genuine commitment to ending the war.Others pondered whether the outcome of this meeting would even be revealed.The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) speculated that the Kremlin was likely to refrain from publicly discussing the outcomes of the meeting to “obfuscate Russia’s likely rejection of the US-Ukrainian peace proposal”.The think tank pointed out that the Kremlin has rejected several iterations of other peace deals, with high-ranking officials rejecting even the 28-point plan because it does not concede to all of Russia’s maximalist war demands.In its latest update, the ISW said: “The Kremlin has been exploiting the lack of clarity about the Alaska summit to conceal the way the Kremlin — not Ukraine — is impeding the negotiations process by sticking to its original war demands.”Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska back in August for a rare face-to-face summit between the two leaders, but it remains unclear what they actually discussed.While the White House remains “very optimistic” over the talks, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointedly said: “We note that the Russians have already launched new disinformation campaigns in view of preparations for their upcoming meetings with the American side.”Perhaps the most telling moment was when Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dropped a clear hint that Russia was not in the mood to compromise.He told reporters: “We must achieve our goals, and we must eliminate the underlying causes of the military operation that we initiated.”Related...Putin Is Already Defining Occupied Ukraine As Part Of Russia In Snub To Trump Peace PlanTrump s Latest Aggressive Push To End The Russia-Ukraine War Prompts Concern For This Telling ReasonAmerican Media Claims US And Ukraine Have Agreed To Draft Of Peace Deal

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