Witkoff misrepresented Russia’s territorial demands during meeting with Putin: broke with protocol and failed to record proposals, - Reuters
Following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 6 August, Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump's special envoy, misrepresented Russia's position on territorial concessions.
According to Censor.NET, Reuters reported this with reference to several sources.
According to the sources, after meeting with Putin in Moscow, Witkoff told Trump that the Kremlin was allegedly ready to offer significant territorial concessions to end the war against Ukraine. Upon hearing this, Trump welcomed the "great progress" and agreed to meet with Putin in Alaska, indicating that the issue of land swap was on the table.
However, diplomatic efforts soon descended into confusion. During a conversation with European leaders on 7 August, Witkoff stated that Putin was ready to withdraw troops from the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in exchange for Ukraine ceding Donetsk and Luhansk. This proposal "startled many of those" on the call, as it sharply diverged from their own assessments of Putin's position.
The very next day, Witkoff changed his version, stating that the Kremlin had not actually offered to withdraw troops from the two Ukrainian regions, but had only made it clear that it would not demand that the West officially recognise the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions as part of Russia.
This situation allegedly arose because Witkoff broke with protocol by going to the meeting without a State Department notetaker and thus left without a record of Putin's precise proposals.
According to Reuters, some American officials, including Trump's adviser on Ukraine Keith Kellogg, were unhappy that Witkoff brought back controversial information from Moscow at a time when the US was beginning to take a tougher stance on Russia.
To recap, US Special Representative Steve Witkoff previously stated that Russia had put forward a peace proposal concerning the Donetsk region for discussion.
