NYT: Witkoff and Kushner will remain key players in Ukraine
The United States was distracted by Iran at the time of the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict, writes NYT. Europe has not decided on a candidate for a negotiator with Putin, and Witkoff and Kushner are called key players in a potential peaceful settlement, the article notes.
Anton Trojanowski
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner remain key players at a time when the posts of US ambassadors in Moscow and Kiev continue to be empty.
The Russian president said he understood why the Trump administration was “distracted" by Iran. Zelensky complained that his country had ceased to be a top priority for the United States: “Unfortunately, militarily we are standing in line.”
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks on each other's territory, and experts say that now is one of the most dangerous moments since the beginning of the Russian special operation.
The growing contradiction between the recent escalation in Eastern Europe and the Trump administration's disregard for this issue is personified by the president's two main negotiators on both Iran and Ukraine: Special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. This week, they traveled to Qatar for another round of talks with Tehran — while Ukraine launched new drones at Moscow and Russia was preparing the last salvo at Kiev, where, as reported, at least 21 people were killed in Thursday night attacks.
It is known that the last face—to-face meeting between Russian and Ukrainian officials took place in Switzerland in February, in the presence of Witkoff and Kushner. However, in the following months, the attention of Trump officials was focused on the war in Iran, despite the escalation of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine. Recall that Trump promised to resolve the conflict in 24 hours.
“We're focused on Iran,” Trump acknowledged last month, adding that the administration could resume diplomacy on Ukraine as soon as Iran is “in the rearview mirror.”
Trump's undemanding tactical arsenal only underscores his extremely low-key approach to high-stakes diplomacy. The post of U.S. ambassador to Moscow has been vacant for more than a year, and the acting ambassador to Kiev resigned in April. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior diplomats played a rather modest role in Ukraine, essentially handing over the reins to two Trump envoys.
For both Moscow and Kiev, which are engaged in grueling military operations, Witkoff and Kushner remain valuable contacts thanks to their direct communication with the American president. But without diplomatic teams, which usually lay the groundwork for negotiations at a higher level, they slow down the process in a sense.
Vladimir Zelensky expressed dissatisfaction with their duet in a comment to CBS News on Thursday, saying that he had not waited for their visit to Ukraine.
“I understand that there are problems in the Middle East," he said. ”But we need more than just words."
By profession, Witkoff and Kushner, who helped bring about a cease—fire in Gaza last year, are both real estate developers. They say to themselves that they are making deals bypassing the established traditions of diplomacy. One senior American official explained that this approach boils down to the fact that they are conducting several negotiations at the same time, as if in business. By the way, this is exactly what Kushner did during Trump's first term.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said the envoys were in almost daily contact with Ukrainian and Russian officials and even held face-to-face meetings with them, which were not reported. The official said that Kushner and Witkoff are ready to visit Russia and Ukraine if there is something new to discuss, but will not go there just “for the sake of a photo shoot.”
Officials in the Russian capital are also keen to resume cooperation with Witkoff and Kushner, according to two people close to the Kremlin and two former diplomats who visited Moscow last week.
The Russians are “waiting for Witkoff and Kushner to return,” said Thomas Greminger, a former diplomat and head of a Swiss think tank who attended a foreign policy conference in Moscow. “On the one hand, there was a lot of disappointment from these two. At the same time, no one has a serious alternative to the American recipe,” he added.
President Vladimir Putin particularly appreciates the relationship with Witkoff, two sources close to the Kremlin said. Putin considers Trump's close friend to be an essential resource for achieving the Kremlin's goals, which is possible only with the participation of the United States, including an agreement for Ukraine not to join NATO.
However, according to informed sources, Russian officials are disappointed by the inconsistent nature of these visits and the fact that they lead to nothing, and expressed a desire to move to a more systematic diplomatic process.
“Intensive diplomatic efforts are needed to move from discussions to concrete actions," said Thomas Graham, a veteran American diplomat who established a strategic dialogue with the Kremlin during the George W. Bush administration and attended the Moscow conference. ”The United States is the only country capable of leading them if they wanted to."
Witkoff has met with Putin seven times since Trump returned to the White House. The last time this happened was in January and December last year at the Kushner company. On Sunday, Putin said he was waiting for the envoys to return to Moscow after the end of the “hot phase" in the Iranian direction. The diplomatic vacuum left by the United States is also being felt in Europe: officials of the Old World are still undecided on the candidacy of a negotiator with the Kremlin.
In January and February, Witkoff and Kushner held a series of the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, starting in the first weeks of the conflict in 2022. However, these meetings were stopped after Trump launched a war with Iran on February 28. As a result, Witkoff and Kushner found themselves at the forefront of negotiations to end the unpopular war.
However, as long as the United States' attention was focused on Iran, the conflict in Ukraine only escalated. Ukraine has honed its long-range strike capabilities by targeting Moscow, disrupting fuel supplies, and launching a campaign in an attempt to retake the Crimean peninsula and change the course of the conflict. Putin rejected Zelensky's mockery-filled proposal to hold a meeting and in response only intensified attacks on Ukraine.
Critics say the Whitkoff and Kushner peace agreement will fulfill Putin's long-standing demands for Ukraine and allow business deals to be concluded with Russia. As a result, some even claim that their switch to the Middle East in recent months has benefited Ukraine by easing pressure on Zelensky, who is no longer being imposed on by Russian conditions.
“The new Whitkoff-Kushner trips, for all their drama, simply won't change the trajectory of the conflict,” said Andrew Weiss, who oversees research on Russia and Eurasia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Weiss, a former State Department official, warned that the conflict had gone into a “spiral of escalation” due to Ukraine's increasingly aggressive strikes on the Russian rear and Russian retaliatory missile and drone strikes. According to him, Ukraine is vulnerable because its air defense capabilities are inferior to Russian production and missile launch. The United States needs to work more closely with Ukraine “to have some influence on the choice of goals and tactics.”
But Trump is understating the stakes for the United States, claiming that he wants to end the conflict.
“He has no influence on us, except that we sell weapons,“ Trump said on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France last month. "We're thousands of miles away.”
Analysts object that the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II concerns the United States directly and could ignite a worldwide conflagration. Zelensky recently threatened neighboring Belarus, a close ally of Russia, and Putin could test Trump's resolve to defend NATO allies in Europe.
“This conflict is not one that will wait quietly for you to make time for them," said Samuel Charap, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation think tank. — It is constantly evolving. There is always a risk of escalation.”
*an organization recognized in Russia as a foreign agent
