Witkoff Advised Russia on How to Pitch Ukraine Plan to Trump

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00:00This Bloomberg exclusive reporting on the conversation between Steve Witkoff, special

00:04envoy here in the U.S. for the president, and Yuri Yushikov, an aide to Russian President Putin.

00:10Is this standard form of negotiation?

00:13Is this normal diplomacy, especially among non-ally countries?

00:17Well, yes, President Trump used the word standard.

00:21But usually what standard is that you talk to your ally when you are trying to negotiate

00:26a ceasefire or an end to a war involving your ally.

00:30And Ukraine is the U.S. ally.

00:32But here what it looks like is that Witkoff actually, in a way, took Russia's side by telling

00:38Russia that they should call Trump prior to the meeting with Zelensky in the White House

00:43back in October.

00:44So that looks like they're, you know, the U.S. is choosing sides and choosing the wrong

00:50side, since it's Russia that attacked Ukraine and Russia that has been an adversary state

00:56of the U.S. for many years now.

00:58So in your view, how does it affect peace negotiations?

01:02So it can be very dangerous when you have a negotiator who doesn't understand the war

01:06or Russia or Ukraine.

01:08And Witkoff worked in real estate in New York.

01:12And so he seems to me conceptualizes this conflict as a war over land or territory.

01:19And that's not necessarily a crazy assumption.

01:22There are a lot of wars over land or territory.

01:23But in this case, it's wrong.

01:26This is not Russia doesn't need the land or want land.

01:29What they want to do is destroy Ukrainian sovereignty.

01:31And this is Putin's goal.

01:33It's been his goal since 2022.

01:36And he continues, I believe, to seek that goal.

01:40So giving a little bit of land that that this is what this is what Witkoff suggested, that

01:47we can find get to a peace agreement by giving up some territory, some land.

01:51It's not really what Russia is interested in.

01:54That is an important distinction, because I think even we say it's about Putin expanding

02:00a land grab.

02:01Right.

02:02So the difference is going back to the way U.S.S.S. are like what like what is it about

02:09really for President Putin?

02:11Well, why is it that Ukraine makes him so frustrating that it has its own independent

02:16nation?

02:17Right.

02:17So this is this takes a little bit more time to explain than we have.

02:22Sorry, but I would I guess I would say this is a whole semester, right?

02:26But I would say two things we can sort of summarize is that, number one, Putin wants Ukraine

02:32to still be in the neighborhood of Russia and a close ally of Russia.

02:37And that means an authoritarian kind of oligarchic state.

02:40It doesn't mean a member of the EU or NATO or democracy or an ally of the U.S.

02:46So keeping the West out of Ukraine is the fundamental goal of Russia.

02:53What is Putin so afraid of?

02:55Why is that so?

02:56Having a large, powerful democracy on the border.

02:59And then there's this personal element as well.

03:03Personal oligarchic friends of Putin who were expelled from positions of power in Ukraine

03:10over the past few years, as well as this concept that Ukrainians are not a nation.

03:16They're not a separate people and they don't deserve statehood.

03:18They are a little brother Slavic, little brothers of Russians.

03:22So this is why they're kidnapping children and taking Ukrainian children and saying you're

03:27actually Russian.

03:28Does it make you think differently about the U.S.

03:31relationship with Russia?

03:33It has worsened the U.S.

03:35relationship with Russia.

03:36It was already an adversarial relationship, as I mentioned, but now it's it's much, much

03:42worse.

03:42We see Americans arrested and used as as just pawns in in trades that Russia, as political

03:51prisoners, we see lack of any kind of diplomacy with regard to other countries in the world

03:58or other formerly common interests that the U.S. and Russia shared.

04:02So we seem to be enduring a kind of deep freeze in relations with Russia.

04:06And it doesn't look like a kind of ceasefire peace agreement is going to change some of

04:12those underlying issues.

04:14So, God, here we are in our fourth year on this war.

04:17I remember when it broke out.

04:19Like, so does it mean that this is a fight to the bitter end?

04:24It feels kind of bitter if I look at the devastation in Ukraine, people, places, if you will.

04:32So is a peace plan even possible?

04:35So I would say, you know, it's good that the Trump administration is talking.

04:39Yeah.

04:39But the goal of Ukraine and the goal of the U.S. initially was to kind of find a ceasefire

04:45agreement and then take the time and the real hard work of diplomacy to reach a peace agreement,

04:51a peace treaty.

04:52These aren't usually documents or agreements that are reached quickly.

04:56Right.

04:56So a ceasefire agreement would be wonderful.

04:59Ukrainians continue to suffer.

05:00They continue to die.

05:01I was just talking to my Ukrainian friend and she said that beyond not being able to sleep

05:06at night because of the huge number of of drone and missile attacks that have increased

05:10this summer, she sometimes can't go to the hospital for her medical care because there's

05:14no hospitals closed and you never know when it's open or closed.

05:17So there's this, you know, tragic human, ongoing human element.

05:21And there are reasons why both sides might want to want a ceasefire at the present time.

05:27But there there's also this kind of intransigent position of Putin, which is, again, the goal

05:32to undercut Ukrainian sovereignty and statehood.

05:35And I don't think he's moved off that goal because I think he still believes he can make

05:39progress on the battlefield.

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