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London: Peace in Europe sounded simple when Donald Trump’s special envoy spoke to his Russian counterpart last month. The envoy, property developer Steve Witkoff, was disarmingly direct about what it would take to get a ceasefire in Russia’s war against Ukraine. It was almost as if Witkoff was trading blocks in Manhattan, where he made a fortune estimated at $1.2 billion.

“Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere,” Witkoff told Russian negotiator Yuri Ushakov, a key aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Even as he said it, however, Witkoff knew the deal could never be described this way in public by his boss, the US president.

“But I’m saying instead of talking like that, let’s talk more hopefully because I think we’re going to get to a deal here. And I think, Yuri, the president will give me a lot of space and discretion to get to the deal.”

From left: Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.Credit: Matt Willis

That simple solution is, in fact, a strategic nightmare. And it has Europe worried about a Trump deal that trades away Ukraine for a worthless pledge from Putin. That is why the Witkoff-Ushakov conversation bears repeating several days after Bloomberg published the transcript of the October 14 conversation in an extraordinary leak of a confidential call.

Some US Republicans want Witkoff sacked for the way he heaped praise on Putin, a man who rules through assassination and repression. “You know I have the deepest respect for President Putin,” Witkoff told Ushakov. Republican congressman Don Bacon had a quick response: “It is clear that Witkoff fully favours the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations.”

One of the working theories about the leak is that American insiders released the call to derail Witkoff, but this overlooks the fact that Bloomberg also revealed a recorded call between Ushakov and another Kremlin envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, on October 29. The leading theory is that a European intelligence service has been eavesdropping on the Russians. While the leak to the media will force the Russians to tidy up their security, the European side probably considers this to be an acceptable cost. The priority is to paint Witkoff as a Russian patsy.

Trump is defending his envoy and says his talk on the leaked call is simply “what a dealmaker does” to get an outcome. The broader truth, however, is that Trump is walking back from the peace plan he and his aides were acclaiming just a week ago, with its 28 points and its major concessions to Russia.

That original plan is dead. It developed out of talks between Witkoff and Dmitriev in Miami four weeks ago, and strongly favoured Russia with proposals such as a swift end to sanctions, a cap on the Ukrainian military, a Russian takeover of much of eastern Ukraine and a ban on Western troops on Ukrainian soil. Reuters revealed on Thursday that it drew from a Russian document put to the United States in late October.

Russian foreign adviser Yuri Ushakov (left) and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia in........

© The Age