Thread by @christogrozev

NBC reports that, shockingly, during his latest Moscow pilgrimage Witkoff met with Putin and his two negotiators alone and without his own interpreter, relying - in breach of protocol - on a locally present one. . However, this seems half the problem (1/n)nbcnews.com/world/russia/r…

Here's the video released by the Kremlin. It clearly shows Witkoff pointing at the young woman and asking "Interpreter?", to which Putin & Co say "yes". Following that, cryptically Witkoff asks "from Embassy?", to which he again gets a confirmation.

So what embassy is the interpreter from? Obviously there's no Russian embassy in Moscow (unless Witkoff thinks so), so a logical conclusion is that he was assured she was, hm, sent by or approved by the US embassy? Anyway, let's look at who she is.

Unfortunately, the video only shows a glimpse of her side profile. Fortunately, today's AI face search tools are happy with that breadcrumb of visual information.

She apparently is the government appointed interpreter for key Russian political figures, such as Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev.

More worryingly, she's also apparently the interpreter for the head of Russia's foreign intelligence agency, Naryshkin.

Her name is Natalia Koshkina, born 1991. Currently she works as second secretary of the Russian MFA's linguistics department..but a few years ago she worked as third secretary of the Russian mission to NATO in Brussels.. almost certainly not am interpreter job.

Leaked social insurance records show that in addition to being employed by the MFA, she is also working for the holding company of RT, the Kremlin's propaganda mouthpiece.
So the question is: did Witkoff really think she was sent by the US embassy? Or did, maybe worse, the UA embassy in Moscow endorse her as a "neutral" interpreter for a negotiation where lives of hundreds of thousands of people - plus the security of half the world - were at stake?

Or as @FideliusSchmid posited, unfortunately sarcastically: Wow, of she's a US asset, the Americans are going places...

(obviously I meant the US embassy, not the UA embassy, typo)