Zelensky had his first meeting ever with Witkoff and Jared Kushner this week. Witkoff has been to Russia many times and met with Putin and Russian negotiators many times. Witkoff always comes of of those meeting completely buying into the Russian line on everything.
After meeting with Zelensky, Witkoff came out buying into everything Zelensky told him and got Trump to agree to a NATO-esque security guaranty for Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine agreeing to forgo NATO membership. And this is being done as Zelensky is securing bilateral security guaranties from various NATO members. So, for Putin, this is all a non-starter.
But the most important part of this development is that it confirms that Steve Witkoff is a lightweight and has no idea what he is doing. Adding Jaren Kushner to the team at least puts someone in there who has experience in international diplomacy. But Kushner's wheelhouse has always been Middle East/Israeli diplomacy. And the Trump administration has still not staffed up all the non-political positions in the state department for people who know how to do all the technical work to get a peace treaty across the finish line. That is why we just keep seeing two page bullet points. That is all that Kushner and Witkoff are capable of doing.
While Putin is showing no signs of making any concessions that would actually end the conflict, I think he is looking for a way out as the strikes against Russia's oil industry are starting to bite and the EU is moving closer to using $300 billion of Russian assets to provide aid to Ukraine. If Putin can get a decent amount of territory in a deal and get Russia integrated back into the world economy, he can get the Russian military ready for the next war against Ukraine.
The problem is that Witkoff is so incompetent that he cannot even be consistent as to which side he is sold on and there is no one in the Trump administration that can do the technical work to finalize a deal. So, this is just all going to keep dragging on.
