“He had to sell the plan to Ukraine, he had to sell it to Russia. That’s what dealmakers do.” Donald Trump defends deal-making and Steve Witkoff’s deal, dismissing it as ‘standard negotiation’ revelations about the advice his friends and special envoys gave the Kremlin to woo the White Houseand especially the president.
Trump’s remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One came after American media gave extensive coverage to a transcript, reported by Bloomberg, of a phone call Witkoff had in October with Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, in which the New York real estate developer, who became Trump’s plenipotentiary negotiator, proposed cooperation on plans for Ukraine.
Witkoff’s words prompted criticism from Republican leaders accusing him of being a “traitor”, several American deputies called for his resignation.
Kremlin: “Demand for Witkoff’s resignation undermines peace process”
Ongoing calls in the United States for Witkoff to resign “are derailing the fragile process of a peace agreement in Ukraine”, commented Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. As for the contents of the phone call transcribed in Bloomberg, there was “nothing concerning” whether it was true or false. “Calls for resignation have the main aim of sabotaging the ongoing peace settlement efforts. Many will stop at nothing to destroy this process,” he added.
Peskov assured that Ongoing talks to end war in Ukraine are ‘serious’. “A process is underway and it is serious,” he said, complaining that there were “many people” who wanted to try to “obstruct” the talks.
All hypotheses
Two telephone calls, between Yuri Ushakov and Steve Witkoff, on October 14, and between Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, on the 29th of last month, regarding a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine. A plan ‘suggested’ by Moscow to the White House, based on the White House’s own proposals, as stated in the transcript. Calls that can be made via Whatsapp, as Ushakov hinted at in an interview with Kommersant. The transcript was published by Bloomberg and it is not clear who provided the audio: suspicions focused on the CIA and NSA, although the services of European countries, such as the UK, which were ‘disgusted’ by the position of White House special envoy, were not excluded.
It’s hard to imagine Russia’s intelligence services, which have a long track record of wiretapping and publishing footage of telephone conversations. This hypothesis can only be supported by the ongoing split between the group of ‘hawks’ such as Sergei Lavrov, and the wing more open to negotiations with the United States, led by Dmitriev. Although some have argued that publication of the contents of the phone call undermines the peace plan, absolving Moscow of responsibility for derailing it, The Guardian underlines in a reconstruction.
Ukraine would have had even more reason to publish the audio, given Witkoff’s ‘pro-Russian’ role. But the risk of a breakdown in relations with America makes this unlikely. The strongest hypothesis is that the ‘leak’ occurred in the United States.
“There are several ways to intercept phone calls, including traditional signals intelligence methods, cyber attacks, access to devices. Any hypothesis is theoretically possible, but my strong suspicion is that it is American and if this is the case, you have two entities capable of doing it, the CIA and the NSA,” an intelligence source explained to the Guardian. There are many people at both institutions who have suffered as a result of the administration’s policies toward Russia, but leaking the audio of the phone calls would be extremely dangerous for those responsible. The fact that Bloomberg received the actual audio and not a transcript suggests that the source was either directly involved in intelligence gathering or had high-ranking officials to obtain the full audio.
“It’s not surprising that some agency might have had access to the audio, but it’s surprising that someone decided to leak it,” added a source, speaking about the first consequence of the publication: Ushakov, whose phone was tapped, threw away the device. “There are those who listen, there are those who leak. It’s not us,” said the Kremlin’s Foreign Policy Advisor, acknowledging the veracity of much of the published content.
