What we learnt from Tucker Carlson interview with Steve Witkoff

Trump’s Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, was interviewed by Tucker Carlson on 21 March. The real estate mogul is actively engaged in efforts to negotiate a deal with Russia on a ceasefire in Ukraine. The interview took place after Witkoff visited Moscow and met with Putin earlier that week.

This one-and-a-half-hour interview was remarkable on many levels. It reveals how Witkoff sees Russia’s war against Ukraine and its root causes. It shows how he, like his boss, admire Putin and consider him a forthright negotiating partner and a “good guy”. But above all, the interview also reveals a remarkably shallow understanding of the war and a deep internalisation of Russian propaganda. Here are five takeaways from the interview.

1. Witkoff doesn’t understand the basics of Russia’s war against Ukraine. He believes the key issue is territory: Russia merely wants Crimea and the four other regions – whose names he can’t fully remember – under partial Russian occupation. If these are given to Russia, the war can end. He willingly accepts the Russian narrative that referenda were held in these regions showing an overwhelming majority wanting to be under Russian rule. Russia held sham referenda in Crimea in 2014 and in September 2022 in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhe, and Kherson in order to justify its annexation of the territories. Witkoff seems to happily accept the Russian line that these regions are essentially inhabited by Russians.

2. The notion that Russia wants to absorb all of Ukraine or attack Europe is, according to Witkoff, preposterous. He can’t understand why Russia would want all of Ukraine. Being a New York real estate developer, he – like Trump – sees the war as fundamentally about material assets, be it mineral deposits, nuclear power plants, or territory. The solution can be found in dividing up those assets (with the US taking its cut). He says nothing about Russian imperialism or Moscow’s desire to eradicate Ukraine as a state or nation.

3. Interestingly, he doesn’t acknowledge Carlson’s (and Russia’s) claim that NATO enlargement is the root cause of the war. He says that Zelensky has conceded that NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table. But, he goes on to suggest, Article 5 protection for Ukraine is open for discussion. This is an idea that Italian Prime Minister Meloni has spoken about publicly. It might be the case that Witkoff sees the need for some sort of security guarantee for Ukraine to prevent Russia from attacking Ukraine again in the future.

4. Witkoff wants a deal that everyone can be satisfied with and is very optimistic about the prospects of this. He doesn’t seem to understand the zero-sum nature of this war and Russia’s long-standing imperial ambitions in Ukraine. He claims that there has been more progress in the past eight weeks than during the past three years. The immediate goal is a 30-day ceasefire during which a permanent ceasefire can be negotiated; the outcome depends on the battlefield conditions. He insists that military assistance to Ukraine has to come with conditions to push them to accept a ceasefire.

5. Witkoff likes Putin and doesn’t consider him a bad guy. Rather Witkoff finds Putin to be straight up with him and “gracious” for seeing him in Moscow. But Witkoff is clearly susceptible to Putin’s machinations. In the interview Witkoff recalls how he rejected words of caution from a Trump Administration official about Putin being a manipulative ex-KBG officer. But then in the interview, Witkoff recollects how Putin said that he had gone to a priest to pray for Trump’s health after the assassination attempt during the campaign, not because Trump might become the president but because Putin considered Trump a friend. Putin also handed over a painting of Trump, which Witkoff delivered to the White House.

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