EXPERT OPINION / PERSPECTIVE -- Reports from Moscow suggest that U.S. representatives Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are “optimistic” about the prospect of results from their discussion with Kremlin officials this week. But after months of fruitless negotiations, if they are optimistic about achieving a negotiated solution to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they have little reason for it, given comments from Russian officials on the Moscow discussions.
If, as has been recently suggested to me, a central priority behind Kusher and Witkoff’s participation in negotiations (instead of relying on more experienced U.S. diplomats with a record of dealing with autocrats like Vladimir Putin) is to secure business deals in Russia following the conclusion of hostilities, then both the negotiations over Ukraine’s future and future business deals in Russia will prove to be fool’s errands, the former first and the latter over time. President Trump should know better and should have selected better representation for U.S. interests.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov described the meeting between Putin and the U.S. representatives as “very useful, constructive, and highly substantive.” At the same time, he said no compromise on a peace plan was reached. He went on to note that Russia wants peace, but only if its objectives are met and reiterated that Moscow insists on achieving the goals of its “special operation.”
Peskov’s remarks are not surprising as they are completely consistent with the narrative that Putin has pushed before and during his ill-fated invasion of Ukraine. As if to emphasize the Kremlin’s rejection of the Kushner-Witkoff mission, Putin launched one of the largest drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, probably while the U.S. representatives were still in the air flying home.
Russia’s position in this “negotiation” is absolutely clear and has been for some time: The complete elimination of Ukraine as an independent nation; the breakup of the transatlantic alliance which has been the bedrock of European security since 1945; the creation and exacerbation of political division in the United States to weaken it as a strategic opponent and create the conditions for the establishment of a multi-polar world order with Moscow and Beijing leading the autocratic anti-democratic poles and a weakened U.S. and Europe, the other pole. Success in Ukraine is key to Putin and Chinese President Xi Jingping’s strategy.
As part of the red orchestra Putin is directing to set the stage for the achievement of his objectives, he is pushing two critical narratives. The first is that Russia can achieve through military conquest the subjugation of Ukraine - the narrative that Kyiv is losing and will inevitably lose the war. Secondly, he is pushing the argument in Washington and elsewhere that Europe is undermining the Trump Administration’s efforts to achieve a negotiated solution to the conflict (however feckless and unrealistic the 28 point peace plan was/is). Putin is also using a combination of “gray zone” clandestine kinetic and lethal operations across Europe to undermine public confidence in their security at home and undermine resolve to support Ukraine and resist Putin’s ambitions. The Russian leader has executed a number of these efforts in recent years with varying degrees of plausible deniability and certainly without any retribution or consequence paid.
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At Putin’s age and at this stage of his regime, he cannot back off his maximalist objectives in Ukraine, at least not until the pain from the war is felt by Russian elites and the Russian public to the point where his house of cards starts to tumble.
Ukraine’s ability to extract maximum casualties from Russia’s marginal territorial advances in Ukraine plus the cost being paid by Ukraine’s long-range strikes against energy infrastructure and military targets in the Russian Federation start to undermine support in those constituencies for Putin’s continued governance. The plan led by Kushner and Witkoff and endorsed by Trump works against undermining support in Russia for Putin’s aggression.
So, where does that leave Kushner and Witkoff with regard to a rumored undisclosed agenda of using the negotiations as cover for post-conflict business arrangements with Moscow? Dealing with business confidence in a kleptocracy is an oxymoron. If Kushner and Witkoff have never heard of Bill Browder, they should look him up.
Browder has consistently and accurately described the risks of doing business in Putin’s Russia. He again recently pointed out these risks in the specific context of warning Trump and his representatives of the risk they are taking on. Browder’s cogent observations and the wreckage of the hundreds of U.S. and western businesses that poured into Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union show that you can put money in but getting it out is another matter entirely.
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Trump and his representatives seem to think they will be the exception to the Russian kleptocratic paradigm. They will not be.
One can be sure Putin and Dmitriev will be whispering all the promises into the ears of their U.S. interlocutors. Kushner and Witkoff will dutifully carry these messages back to the White House and share their pipe dream fantasies of the untold riches of being on Putin’s good side.
The only thing Putin asks Kushner and Witkoff to relay is that Trump stop aiding and supporting the two remaining obstacles to a negotiated settlement, Zelensky and the European members of NATO. End military, intelligence, and economic aid to Ukraine, Putin certainly will have said, and Ukrainian resistance will collapse speedily, and the war will brought more rapidly to its inevitable conclusion. And the U.S. certainly should be able to put enough pressure on its NATO puppets to end their futile support for Ukraine and there will be peace in our time.
The President should engage some sound and experienced counsel to provide more realistic and experienced guidance on Russian realities. The first bit of that counsel would be to remove any illusion that Putin is a man who can be trusted. Putin’s public and private comments as well as his actions over the twenty plus years he has been running the Russian Federation leave no doubt as to where he stands with regard to the West in general and the U.S. in particular.
He believes democracy and capitalism are outmoded and morally exhausted political and economic philosophies doomed to collapse. As President of the country to which Putin refers as the “glavniy protivnik” or main enemy, President Trump should realize in Putin’s mind, HE is the main enemy.
Any promises of business deals that will follow the conclusion of the Ukraine conflict will inevitably be broken by Putin and his representatives. President Trump should understand Putin wants to steal his money the most. What greater victory for Putin than to have the U.S. hand him victory in Ukraine and in the process set up the biggest theft of money from a U.S. entity in history.
A second bit of counsel President Trump might seek to provide his representatives is that it is very difficult to keep secret deals secret when you are represented by someone as manifestly incompetent and compromised as Steve Witkoff. No additional evidence needs to be provided than the leaked transcript of the call with Kirill Dmitriev in which Witkoff provides advice on how to persuade President Trump to accept the Russian proposals for the end of the conflict in Ukraine.
In addition to the naiveté of having such a conversation in the first place, Witkoff should also be advised that undertaking such actions looks a lot like he is acting as an agent of influence for the Russian Federation.
Lastly, President Trump should be reminded of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s famous remarks to Neville Chamberlain after Munich, “You were given the choice between dishonor and war. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” In the context of the current negotiations Churchill might have added that a fool and his money are soon parted.
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