Russia’s Substantial Concessions

Many Trump agnostics, on both the Left and Right, have convinced themselves that a Ukraine peace deal is doomed. Never underestimate Trump. Envoy Steve Witkoff revealed the reality during his Sunday appearance with Jake Tapper. Witkoff spent extensive time negotiating with Putin during the previous week. Trump wouldn’t have invited Putin if a deal wasn’t in sight. Early in this administration, Witkoff was dismissed by media pundits as a naive and gullible dunce, taken to the cleaners in Iranian negotiations. How well did things work out for the surviving Iranian leadership? A billionaire New York attorney, Witkoff was initially dismissed by Qatari fanboy and San Francisco native Tucker Carlson as a “Long Island native.” Now Mr. Passive/Aggressive refers to Witkoff as “a wonderful man.”

The interview didn’t go well for Tapper. He began by asking Witkoff to “give us two specific points that were agreed to.”

“We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing. We didn’t [originally] think that we were anywhere close to agreeing to [NATO] Article Five protection from the United States… [To ensure Russia does] not to go after any other territory when the peace deal is codified, legislative enshrinement in the Russian Federation, not to go after any other European countries and violate their sovereignty… [A]nd there was plenty more.”

Tapper had a one-word response: “Oh.” His CBS colleague, Margaret Brennan, was simultaneously busy attempting to trip up Secretary of State Marco Rubio. That never works. NBC’s Kristen Welker fared no better. Rubio makes his interlocutors look foolish. Deep State forces clearly fear a peace deal. Tapper proceeded, playing a tape of Trump saying, “I want to see a ceasefire rapidly.” Tapper then asked, “Obviously, the ceasefire didn’t happen… Trump had said if he didn’t like what he was hearing in the meeting, he would walk out. Why didn’t he once it became clear Putin was not going to agree to a ceasefire?”

We were there as a mediator, so we were obviously advancing the Ukrainian view. The one thing that the president cannot agree to on behalf of the Ukrainians is any sort of land swap. That is for the Ukrainians. They’ve …stated that to us, and the president is respectful of it, but that’s why we’re moving so quickly to a meeting on Monday at the Oval Office with President Zelensky. …We covered almost all the other issues necessary for a peace deal. So I describe the ceasefire as the interim move where you would then negotiate towards a peace deal. We made so much progress at this meeting with regard to all the other ingredients necessary for a peace deal that President Trump pivoted to that place. Now, we’re not waiting a week for a meeting with President Zelensky and the European leaders, or two weeks, or three weeks. We’re going into a meeting with them within 48 hours of ending this meeting in Alaska. So we are intent on trying to hammer out a peace deal that ends the fighting permanently — very, very quickly. Quicker than a ceasefire.

Tapper began realizing he was in trouble. The session continued downhill for him from there. “I still don’t understand how not getting the ceasefire deal is a win.” Witkoff’s response didn’t help:

The thesis of a ceasefire is that you’d be discussing all of these issues that we [already] resolved in Alaska. You’d be discussing security guarantees. There’s not a person on the European team who didn’t acknowledge that we made substantial progress at this meeting… We cut through all kinds of issues that would have to be discussed and agreed to during a ceasefire period… The fundamental issue, which is some sort of land swap, which is obviously ultimately in the control of the Ukrainians. That could not have been discussed at this meeting. We intend to discuss it on Monday.

Tapper finally switched the subject from a ceasefire: “So Trump told Fox that he and Putin “largely have agreed on” land swaps. Sources tell CNN that President Trump told European leaders that Putin will agree to end the war and not attack Ukraine or other European countries, as you mentioned earlier, in exchange for Ukraine ceding the entire Donbas region to Russia, including territory that isn’t even currently occupied by Russian forces. Is that accurate?”