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All hopes were on Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff trip to Moscow, but a breakthrough in peace talks was never going to happen with a man who has repeatedly taken Russia’s side, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley
Wednesday 03 December 2025 09:25 GMTComments
CloseIf Europe wants war, Russia is ready, says Putin
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Whether by accident or design, Vladimir Putin has a useful idiot running America. International diplomacy has been turned on its head, enemies made friends, allies threatened, international laws defoliated.
Russian strategic policy, known as the Gerasimov doctrine, argues that chaos in the ranks of the enemy is victory and a path to greatness. By that standard Putin, should be stringing up bunting in the Kremlin.
He has achieved unimagined strategic effect by manipulating the Trump administration, which has contorted itself in its efforts to force a Russian victory on Ukraine and against Europe.
In the latest effort by the Oval Office to continue its cringing before the Russian throne, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff – alongside business buddy Jared Kushner – travelled to Moscow for talks.
After five hours with the Russian president, the talks ended with a blunt conclusion from Kushner that “we are no closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine”.
Why the US taking the lead in these negotiations is being countenanced by its Nato “allies” is baffling, were it not for the fact that there is no leader in Europe prepared to say out loud what they must all, surely, know. That Donald Trump is not a broker, he’s not even a dishonest broker when it comes to Ukraine – he is on the wrong side.
Witkoff used to be seen as staggeringly inept. He turns up in the Kremlin fawning like Gollum, takes no notes, uses a Kremlin translator, and emerges from meetings with Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, brimming with admiration.
open image in gallerySteve Witkoff sits opposite Vladimir Putin during five hours of talks in Moscow (Sputnik)He described Putin in one Tucker Carlson interview as a “great guy”, “super smart”, “honest”, and “not a bad guy”. Descriptions that have disgusted the families of Putin’s dead critics like Alexei Navalny and every resident of the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine’s Donbas, where Putin’s troops have scorched the earth and killed mercilessly.
Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.
In one of the least surprising developments in the war, the Russian leader rejected the latest version of a ceasefire plan that was worked out with Ukraine and European leaders.
Because he wants to turn it all back to the earlier version negotiated with Witkoff by his envoy Kirill Dmitriev, in secret. Dmitriev is Witkoff’s escort in Moscow.
The same Witkoff that the Bloomberg agency revealed had coached Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, on how to manipulate Trump. In what must have been an intelligence intercept of Witkoff’s unsecured personal mobile phone leaked to Bloomberg, he’s recorded explaining how Putin could get inside Trump’s head and affect an imminent visit to the White House by Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president.
open image in galleryVladimir Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev and Witkoff during April’s talks (AP)In Western intelligence circles, Trump’s envoy has been considered a fool and a liability for months – partly due to his misuse of a personal phone in countries that will always penetrate its contents.
European spies used to call him “Steve Witless”. Now he’s “Dim Philby”, suggesting that he’s too thick to realise he’s working for the wrong side. The original Kim Philby was a clever traitor, and he knew it.
Yet Witkoff is at the centre of the most important diplomatic activity on the planet.
Europe’s leaders, aside from Hungary and Slovakia, are united in saying that Russia poses a clear and present danger to Western security and democracy. Russia is also accused of assassinations, sabotage, and all manner of hybrid warfare as Gerasimov’s doctrine requires.
Yet they left the talks about the future of the Western world to a man their own intelligence services do not trust. France and Germany are frantically trying to mobilise more troops; Poland is raising its citizens into an army. The continent of Europe is on near red alert.
All hopes are on America, which has repeatedly accepted, as Trump and Witkoff have said, Putin’s demand that, ahead of any talks, Ukraine must agree to withdraw from the front lines it holds now and give up the defences it has prepared.
Trump has put a little pressure on Putin with sanctions against nations importing his oil. He has not threatened to arm Ukraine. He backed away from offering Zelensky Tomahawk cruise missiles to fight Russia after Witkoff’s coaching of the Kremlin.
open image in galleryA motorcade, reportedly transporting Witkoff and Jared Kushner, departs Vnukovo airport before a scheduled meeting with a Russian delegation in Moscow, on 2 December 2025 (Reuters)He doesn’t care what happens to Europe. Along with Witkoff, who is intimately involved in the Trump business empire through members of his own family, Trump is after personal profit and craves the approval of Putin.
The US has no skin in Ukraine’s defence. The only leverage that the US has over Kyiv is the important intelligence feed it gets from Washington. Trump’s administration has threatened to cut this if Ukraine doesn’t agree to capitulate to Russian demands.
Fine. Non-American Nato partners are already setting up systems to cope with this. A final break between Europe and the US over Ukraine that puts the democratic West back in the driving seat of diplomacy is exactly what is needed.
This would end the chaos and therefore end Russia’s weaponisation of chaos.
Europe, which has a real interest in Ukraine and is its biggest source of military and financial aid, should elbow the US aside. As Trump has repeatedly said, Russia is their problem. Not his.
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