{"id":405597,"date":"2025-11-26T08:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T08:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/405597\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T08:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T08:58:10","slug":"how-witkoff-coached-putins-aide-on-pitching-trump-according-to-a-bloomberg-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/405597\/","title":{"rendered":"How Witkoff coached Putin’s aide on pitching Trump, according to a Bloomberg report"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> chief interlocutor with the Russian government last month advised a senior aide to Vladimir Putin<\/a> on how the Russian leader should go about pitching the U.S. president on a peace plan aimed at bringing an end to Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, according to a transcript of the call published by Bloomberg News on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, according to a transcript of the Oct. 14 call published by the news service, advised Putin\u2019s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov that Putin should call Trump to congratulate him for the Gaza peace deal, say Russia had supported it and that he respects the president as a man of peace. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that, it\u2019s going to be a really good call,\u201d Witkoff said according to the transcript.<\/p>\n

When asked by Russian state media to comment on Bloomberg\u2019s report, Ushakov did not question the recordings\u2019 authenticity but said that they had not been leaked by Moscow. He also said that the calls had likely been leaked to \u201chinder\u201d U.S.-Russia ties. \u201cIt\u2019s unlikely this is being done to improve relations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ushakov also said that he spoke with Witkoff by phone \u201cquite often\u201d but refused to discuss the content of the recording. \u201cThe essence of these conversations is that they are confidential. I won\u2019t comment. No one should comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bloomberg report came as Trump on Tuesday said a proposal to end Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine has been \u201cfine-tuned\u201d<\/a> and announced he\u2019s sending Witkoff<\/a> to meet with Putin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The White House did not dispute the veracity of the transcript, and Trump described Witkoff\u2019s reported approach to the Russians in the call as \u201cstandard\u201d negotiating procedure. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got to sell this to Ukraine. He\u2019s got to sell Ukraine to Russia,\u201d Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to his home in Florida on Tuesday night. \u201cThat\u2019s what a dealmaker does.\u201d<\/p>\n

But U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who has been critical of Trump\u2019s approach to Ukraine, said the transcript showed Witkoff favors the Russians. \u201cHe cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired,\u201d Bacon said on social media.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg said it reviewed a recording of the call, but did not say how it obtained access to the recording. The Associated Press has not independently verified the transcript.<\/p>\n

The Witkoff-Ushakov call happened a day after Trump made a triumphant visit to Israel and Egypt to celebrate sealing the Gaza ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s what I think would be amazing,\u201d Witkoff said to his counterpart during the call, according to Bloomberg. \u201cMaybe he says to President Trump: you know, Steve and Yuri discussed a very similar 20-point plan to peace and that could be something that we think might move the needle a little bit, we\u2019re open to those sorts of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witkoff also suggested setting up a Trump-Putin call before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s White House visit later that week and suggested that Putin congratulate Trump on the Gaza agreement as an entry point into the call. Ushakov agreed that Putin \u201cwill congratulate\u201d and will say \u201cMr. Trump is a real peace man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and Putin ended up speaking<\/a> to each other a day before the U.S. president held White House talks with Zelenskyy. Shortly after that meeting with Zelenskyy on Oct. 17, Trump said that Ukraine and Russia should \u201cstop where they are\u201d on the battlefield \u2014 meaning Ukraine should concede territory Russia had seized from its neighbor.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 29, Ushakov spoke by phone with Kirill Dmitriev<\/a> \u2014 a close adviser to Putin on Ukraine \u2014 and debated how strongly Moscow should push for its demands in a prospective peace proposal, according to another recording reviewed by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll informally pass it along, making it clear that it\u2019s all informal. And let them do like their own,\u201d Dmitriev told Ushakov in the back and forth. \u201cBut, I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll take exactly our version, but at least it\u2019ll be as close to it as possible.<\/p>\n

The exchange happened soon after Dmitriev had traveled to Florida for talks with Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump\u2019s son-in-law and informal adviser, that centered on creating the framework for a 28-point peace plan.<\/p>\n

The original plan, which became public last week, appeared heavily skewed toward Russian demands and included calls for Ukraine to cede the entire Donbas region to Russia and dramatically reduce the size of its military. It also included an agreement from Europe that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the NATO military alliance. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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,\u201d White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Dmitriev said in a social media post that the transcript was \u201cFake\u201d and said in a second post: \u201cThe closer we get to peace, the more desperate warmongers become.\u201d The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted the proposal was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians, in response to bipartisan pushback in Washington that the leaked plan amounted to a Russian wish list. The State Department declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Trump said he was sending Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials as Witkoff meets with Putin. Trump also suggested he could eventually meet with Putin and Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been made in negotiations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s chief interlocutor with the Russian government last month advised a senior aide…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":405598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[154378,112726,69,57,86,3464,17966,164729,410,50,80,257,3658,3657,13226,128466,273,3660,67,132,68,274,3656,96,93,107,77429],"class_list":{"0":"post-405597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-dan-driscoll","10":"tag-don-bacon","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-government-policy","14":"tag-international-agreements","15":"tag-jared-kushner","16":"tag-kirill-dmitriev","17":"tag-marco-rubio","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-russia","21":"tag-russia-government","22":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","23":"tag-steve-witkoff","24":"tag-steven-cheung","25":"tag-ukraine","26":"tag-ukraine-government","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-vladimir-putin","31":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","32":"tag-war-and-unrest","33":"tag-washington-news","34":"tag-world-news","35":"tag-yuri-ushakov"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115615177407590026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}