Trump Russia Ukraine: Jared Kushner’s incompetence was on full display this weekend.

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It is a mystery why President Trump continues to rely on the hapless team of Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff—his son-in-law and fellow real-estate tycoon, respectively—to hammer out treaties to end the most destructive wars of our time: Russia vs. Ukraine and Israel vs. the Palestinians.

Yes, Trump doesn’t trust the professional diplomatic corps or experts of any kind. But, as a self-proclaimed businessman, he must notice when aides don’t get the job done, and the Kushner-Witkoff duo have not lured the combatants one step closer to peace; in fact, they’ve arguably intensified the war in Ukraine.

Their utter incompetence was on full display over the weekend, as they met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, then—in their first trip to the Ukrainian capital—Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. They carried what Trump touted ahead of time as new peace proposals, and concluded both sets of talks with boilerplate adjectives (“productive,” “meaningful,” “positive,” “businesslike”). But in fact, they came away with zilch—and, once again, proved themselves far short of the task.

This should come as no surprise. Neither has any diplomatic experience; neither knows anything about Russia or Ukraine or military strategy; nor do they travel with any specialists who might advise them along the way.

Witkoff kicked off the tour with an act of full-bore genuflection toward Putin, greeting the Kremlin dictator as follows:

First, Mr. President, thank you so much for having us. We were sitting outside just now, me, Jared, and Kirill [Dmitriev], and then Yuri [Ushakov] joined us, and we were all talking about when we retire, we’ll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all.

In other words, Mr. President, he might have added, we come to praise you, not pressure you into taking any actions that you don’t feel like taking.

Later in the day, the aforementioned Ushakov, Putin’s senior diplomat, released a summary of the Kremlin team’s position at the meeting: The Russian army has had battlefield successes, meaning it might still win the war; Ukrainian troops must withdraw from the eastern Donbas regions; the war’s “root cause” is Zelensky’s belief that Ukraine is an independent nation; and peace will bring many business opportunities between Russia and the United States. In other words, the usual propaganda. (The U.S. envoys did not release an official “readout” of the meeting, perhaps because they are not officials. That’s right: Kushner and Witkoff hold no government posts, have not been confirmed by the Senate, and are unaccountable to anyone but Trump.)

The duo then flew to Poland and from there proceeded to Kyiv by train. (Zelensky had promised not to bomb Moscow while the two were in the Kremlin, but Putin offered no such pledge in return, so the U.S. security team felt Kyiv’s airport was unsafe. In any case, Putin resumed bombarding Ukraine’s capital city shortly after the two departed. Such a good friend.)

After this meeting, Zelensky insisted that the three hold a press conference, mainly with Ukrainian reporters. It did not go well. Asked if he felt “ashamed” to meet at the same table with an international war criminal like Putin, Witkoff replied:

We’ve always been treated respectfully by President Putin and his team. Relationships are critical in terms of solving conflicts like this. My job, and Jared’s job, is to bring the parties together.

All three sentences reflect, and reaffirm, Witkoff’s utter naivete. They have not been treated respectfully; hence the refusal to issue a hands-off order on Kyiv’s airport while the two were in town. Relationships are not critical in solving conflicts; managing interests, either through diplomacy or force, is key. (Trump, too, doesn’t understand this.) Finally, if Witkoff thinks his job is simply to bring the parties together, he doesn’t understand his job.

Kushner repeated much of Witkoff’s nonsense, saying that the point of negotiations is to produce a “win-win,” including some sort of favor that fulfills Russia’s “aspirations.” Since Russia’s chief aspirations—as Putin himself has declared—are to obliterate Ukraine as an independent nation and to restore much of the old Russian Empire, this isn’t likely to be the basis for an equitable peace.

Along the same lines, Kushner expressed hope that the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine could resume the trilateral talks that began shortly before Trump got sidetracked by the war on Iran (though Kushner didn’t express the chronology that way). The few talks that took place were, as he recalled, such jolly affairs. “Everyone was speaking in Russian to each other. We were discussing these issues in a very extra-friendly manner, all in Russian.” If he’d been escorted by a specialist, Kushner might have been informed that speaking Russian doesn’t make Ukrainians feel merry and welcome, especially with Russian officials who want to be their overlords. (Many Ukrainians these days regard the Russian language, including classic Russian literature, as inherently imperialist.)

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Jared Kushner’s Incompetence Was on Full Display This Weekend

Another Kushner faux pas, this one perhaps reflecting his ignorance of European history: “There is no such thing in the world as forever enemies or forever allies.” He said this in the context of urging Ukrainians to imagine that they might once again be friendly with Russians. However, the analogy that some observers thought he was invoking—the U.S. alliance with Germany after World War II—was not at all fitting, as it developed only after the U.S. and other allies defeated Nazi Germany, deposed its government, tried many of its leaders for war crimes, and imposed a new constitution. Even then, it wasn’t until 10 years after the war ended that the new Federal Republic of Germany was trusted enough for the allies to invite it to join NATO.

Clearly, Kushner wasn’t proposing that Putin be killed or that his government be transformed—though many in the audience might have hoped that he would.

It has never been entirely clear how Trump would like this war to end—or if he thinks it should end, or whether he cares one way or the other. Until he decides, keeping Kushner and Witkoff on the case is a waste of jet fuel and time.