Steve Witkoff is teaching a master class to Russian officials on how to get what they want from Donald Trump.
On Oct. 14, Trump’s special envoy advised Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, on how the Russian dictator should curry favor with Trump before broaching a proposed peace plan between Russia and war-torn Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
During the five-minute call, Witkoff told Putin’s henchman that the Russian president should personally phone Trump, 79, ahead of his planned meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—where Zelensky hoped, but ultimately failed, to secure long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles—to congratulate him on the Gaza ceasefire.
“My recommendation…. I would make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement, that you supported it, you supported it, that you respect that he is a man of peace, and you’re just, you’re really glad to have seen it happen,” Witkoff told his foreign counterpart.
“So I would say that. I think from that it’s going to be a really good call,” Witkoff said, to which Ushakov replied: “Ok, ok my friend. I think that very point our leaders could discuss. Hey Steve, I agree with you that he will congratulate, he will say that Mr. Trump is a real peace man and so and so. That he will say.”
Later, Witkoff all but outlined exactly how the conversation between the two leaders should unfold—advising the Putin aide to present a peace plan in a positive, if highly misleading, light.
“Maybe he says to President Trump: you know, Steve and Yuri discussed a very similar 20-point plan to (Gaza’s plan for) peace and that could be something that we think might move the needle a little bit, we’re open to those sorts of things—to explore what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done,” he said.
Witkoff then seemingly acknowledged that Ukraine would make numerous concessions to Russia—more than the president needed to know.
“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 said.
“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.”
Throughout the conversation, Witkoff asserted his admiration for the Kremlin’s leader.
“You know I have the deepest respect for President Putin,” Witkoff said at one point. When he mentioned Zelensky’s forthcoming visit to the White House, he said he’d be meeting the Ukrainian president only “because they want me there.”
“But I think if possible we have the call with your boss before that Friday meeting,” he said.
Sure enough, Trump wrote on Truth Social a few days later that Putin had congratulated him on the “Great Accomplishment of Peace in the Middle East,” and suggested his “Success in the Middle East will help in our negotiation in attaining an end to the War with Russia/Ukraine.”
His meeting with Zelensky later that week then reportedly ended in a fiery shouting match.
After the call, Witkoff met with Kirill Dmitriev, an economic adviser to Putin and the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, in Miami alongside Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Reuters reported.
In a phone call between Ushakov and Dmitriev, also leaked to Bloomberg, the Putin advisers agreed to draft their own version of a peace plan and pass it to Witkoff, whom they believed would keep it “as close to [Russia’s version] as possible.”
“I think we’ll just make this paper from our position, and I’ll informally pass it along, making it clear that it’s all informal,” Dmitriev said. “And let them do like their own. But, I don’t think they’ll take exactly our version, but at least it’ll be as close to it as possible.”
The initial draft of what is now believed to be Trump’s 28-point peace plan—presided over by Witkoff—was slammed by bipartisan lawmakers over the weekend as a complete cave-in to Putin in recent days. It involved Ukraine handing over territory to Russia, ending its hopes of joining NATO, and inviting Russia to rejoin the G8—and has even been accused of being written in Moscow before being presented as a U.S.-led proposal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since revised a new 19-point plan that Ukraine has tentatively agreed to, CNN reported.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a Yale Law School buddy of JD Vance’s, has taken center stage as the man delivering the latest Ukraine peace proposal to the Russians.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment. The president defended Witkoff aboard Air Force One on Tuesday while en route to Palm Beach.
“That’s a standard thing,” Trump said, adding he had not heard the audio himself.
“He’s gotta sell this to Ukraine, he’s gonna sell Ukraine to Russia. That’s what a dealmaker does. I haven’t heard it but I heard it was standard negotiation.”
Meanwhile, speaking to NewsNation, White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung said: “This story proves one thing: Special Envoy Witkoff talks to officials in both Russia and Ukraine nearly every day to achieve peace, which is exactly what President Trump appointed him to do.”
