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All hopes are on Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff, who have repeatedly accepted Putin’s demand that, ahead of any talks Ukraine must agree to withdraw from the front lines – Europe must take over negotiations, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley
Tuesday 02 December 2025 12:09 GMTComments
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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 – have arrived in Moscow.
Why this is being countenanced by America’s “allies” in Nato 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 colonel, brimming with admiration.
open image in galleryVladimir Putin shakes hands with Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff in Saint Petersburg in April 2025 (AFP/Getty)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 Alexy Navalny and every resident of the Russian speaking areas of Ukraine’s Donbas where Putin’s troops have scorched earth and killed mercilessly.
Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
The Russian leader has said he is prepared to take a look at the latest version of a plan for a ceasefire that has been worked out with Ukraine and European leaders and is expected to be discussed with Witkoff.
But he has also said it is non-starter.
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 cell ‘phone leaked to Bloomberg, he’s recorded explaining how Putin can get inside Trump’s head and affect a imminent visit to the White House by Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president.
open image in galleryVladimir Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff attend talks in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 11, 2025 (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 who 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 he 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 hybrid warfare, assassinations, sabotage, and all manner of hybrid warfare as Gerasimov’s Doctrine requires.
Yet they leave 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 frontlines 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 officials including U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, departs Vnukovo International Airport before a scheduled meeting with a Russian delegation in Moscow, Russia, December 2, 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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