What happened between Washington and Moscow?

Negotiations on the Ukraine War

Telephone recording: What happened between Washington and Moscow?

Steve Witkoff doesn’t know Russia or Ukraine. But he is Trump’s man for contacts with Kremlin boss Putin. His proposals influence the course of Ukraine diplomacy.

Adding excitement to the hectic diplomacy over Ukraine comes with the leaking of phone contents between U.S. and Russian negotiators. The US special envoy Steve Witkoff came under criticism; However, President Donald Trump immediately defended him against accusations of excessive proximity to Russia.

“This is a completely normal thing,” said the Republican on a flight to Florida when asked about a sensitive report by the Bloomberg news agency. According to her own information, she obtained a recording of a five-minute telephone conversation on October 14th, which she published as a written transcript.

In it, Witkoff speaks with Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy advisor to Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. He apparently gives him tips on how to get Trump’s ear with praise for his peace in Gaza. In fact, the advice appears to have resulted in a phone call between Putin and Trump on October 16th. The American then held out the prospect of another summit in the Hungarian capital Budapest. A visit by Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House on October 17 lost its significance.

Witkoff (68) is not a diplomat, but a real estate entrepreneur like Trump. While there were calls for Witkoff’s resignation even within the Republican Party, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on the Russian side interpreted the publication as an attempt to undermine peace efforts. “It is clear that there are many people in various countries, including the United States, who want to stop the trend towards peace,” he said, according to state news agency Tass. At the same time, he did not attach great importance to the leak.

Ushakov said his conversations with Vitkoff were not intended for public consumption. “Nobody is allowed to make this public. Nobody,” he said, according to Tass. It is not known where the recording came from.

Trump said he didn’t hear the recording of the conversation, but to him the whole thing sounded like “normal negotiations.” Russian positions must be communicated to Ukraine and, conversely, Moscow’s demands from Kyiv. When asked whether his special envoy was too Russia-friendly, Trump replied that the war could last for years – and that Russia has “many more residents and soldiers” than Ukraine. If the attacked country can negotiate a deal, he thinks that would be “a good thing.”

The Bloomberg report also cites an internal Russian phone call from the end of October between Putin advisor Ushakov and special envoy Kirill Dmitriyev. He suggested leaking an unofficial document as an alleged peace plan. Even if the US does not adopt this completely, enough Moscow perspectives would still be taken into account, Dmitriyev argued.