In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce an American billionaire, real estate developer, and wannabe diplomat, Steve Witkoff. He’s best known for trying to sell Ukraine to Putin and for helping Trump sell this treason and encouragement of genocidal war as “peace”.
1/20
Steve studied law and political science at Hofstra University in New York. After law school, he worked as a real estate attorney, which led him into property acquisitions and development. He first met Trump in the 1980s when Trump was a client of his real estate law firm.
2/20
In 1997, Witkoff founded the Witkoff Group, a New York–based real estate development and investment firm. The firm has owned and developed dozens of properties in New York and other major US cities, making Witkoff quite wealthy, with some interesting business connections.
3/20
In 2024, Steve’s son Zach Witkoff co-founded World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture, with Trump and others, with Trump’s and Witkoff’s families owning a large share of it. Both families also have profitable business dealings in the Middle East.
4/20
After being elected to his 2nd term in 2024, Trump announced that Witkoff would be his special envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff had no diplomatic experience, no understanding of autocratic regimes, and a risk of conflicts of interest given his business ties in the region.
5/20
It got worse when he became de facto envoy to war criminal, dictator & seasoned KGB agent Putin. Witkoff isn’t a diplomat, nor a Russia expert, speaks no Russian, knows nothing about the region, and refused CIA briefings.
His only “qualification”? His admiration for Putin.
6/20
Trump doesn’t seem to understand much about the situation, either: he’s promised more than 50 times he would end Russia’s war on Ukraine as soon as he wins the election, lying about how well he knew Putin and Zelenskyy, leading to the Alaska Fiasco:
7/20
Or was it Witkoff’s incompetence? Was the meeting cut short when Trump got bored as Putin explained his imperialist aims to him? Or are they both just playing dumb to stall real sanctions? Trump also ignores intelligence reports: even if it’s ignorance, it’s deliberate.
8/20
The Budapest Blunder followed the Alaska Fiasco, with Witkoff & Trump ignoring the simple reality that Putin started a war because… he wanted to start a war. Witkoff instead preposterously claims that he “remains fully committed to achieving peace”.
9/20
While Putin wages a genocidal war of aggression he started and could end at any time by withdrawing from Ukraine’s borders, Witkoff goes on propagandist Tucker Carlson’s show and sells him as “not a bad guy”, spreads the lies he uses to justify his war, and carefully…
10/20
… avoids naming the aggressor deliberately murdering Ukrainians every day: Steve’s dear Putin. Witkoff then expects us to trust Putin promising to not attack again, when in fact Russia’s own laws and a number of treaties should already have guaranteed that.
11/20
In particular, the Budapest Memorandum, which in fact should also have precluded the very sort of pressure against Ukraine that the US is now committing by bullying Ukraine into accepting Witkoff’s “peace” plan.
12/20
A strange “peace plan” with everything upside down, with the US acting to pressure Ukraine, the victim, instead of Russia, the aggressor, to make concessions and cede land: either siding with Russia or falling for the most blatant manipulation. In fact, it turns out that…
13/20
…the plan was written by Russians, in Russian. Holding crucial talks without any note-takers or American interpreters, lacking any training in political negotiations, Witkoff has breached diplomatic protocol and sidelined anyone reasonable still left in the US government.
14/20
Worse, it was actually Putin who chose Witkoff for this purpose, enticing Trump with a “goodwill” prisoner exchange: in February, Witkoff traveled to Moscow, met with Putin and brought home schoolteacher Marc Fogel in exchange for Russian money launderer Alexander Vinnik.
15/20
Worse yet, Witkoff has been actively helping the Kremlin manipulate Trump: a leaked transcript of a phone call between Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s most senior foreign policy adviser, shows Witkoff giving Ushakov tips on how to convince Trump against helping Ukraine.
16/20
It’s hard to see all of this as anything but a betrayal both of Ukraine by the United States, and of the US by Witkoff. Mere ignorance is a lame excuse for taking the side of our enemies in such a morally straightforward and well-documented conflict going on for years.
17/20
A darker explanation could be Witkoff’s business connections to Russia, making him willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives and actual US interests for a few real estate opportunities, whether it’s repayment for past help or hoping for future deals.
18/20
To what degree does Trump bear responsibility for letting Witkoff speak for him and the United States? We certainly won’t “Good Tsar, Bad Boyars” this: whether incompetent, corrupt or compromised, Witkoff has not been fired yet.
19/20
Instead, Trump is already easing sanctions to help the Kremlin terrorist regime, something Witkoff has wanted for years, and he brings him… red caviar. Not black: no matter how hard you try to please or appease the Kremlin, it will never be enough.
20/20
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