Former top Russia adviser says US president would not be surprised by the tactics his envoy is using to negotiate a Ukraine peace deal
Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy, has been criticised for the way in which he is negotiating with Russia on a peace deal Credit: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU
Cameron Henderson US Reporter
27 November 2025 6:37pm GMT
Steve Witkoff’s future as Donald Trump’s top envoy looked uncertain after he was caught red-handed appearing to coach the Kremlin on how to flatter the US president.
But Mr Trump won’t be surprised by Mr Witkoff’s tactics in the Oct 14 phone call — in fact, it is how he expects his team to conduct themselves, his former top Russia adviser has said.
The conversation, revealed on Tuesday, has threatened to derail peace talks amid finger-pointing about who is responsible.
Fiona Hill, who served on the national security council during Mr Trump’s first term, said the extraordinary phone call is “hardly shocking” and is “business as usual for Trump”.
“I don’t think Trump would be surprised that this is how Witkoff is operating because this is how he operates as well,” she told The Telegraph.
Speaking to Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s most senior foreign policy aide, Mr Witkoff sought to use the momentum from Mr Trump’s success in ending the war in Gaza to push for a peace deal in Ukraine.
“Yuri, here’s what I would do. My recommendation,” Mr Witkoff said, according to a transcript reviewed and transcribed by Bloomberg.
“I would make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement, that you supported it… that you respect that he is a man of peace and you’re just, you’re really glad to have seen it happen. So I would say that. I think from that it’s going to be a really good call.”
Following the publication of the calls, several members of Congress have voiced their dismay.
Don Bacon, a Republican Nebraska representative, called for Mr Witkoff to be fired, comparing his actions to those of “a Russian paid agent”, while Brian Fitzpatrick, a member of the Ukraine caucus and fellow Republican, said the leak was “one of the many reasons why these ridiculous side shows and secret meetings need to stop”.
The conversation peels back the veil on Mr Witkoff’s close relationship with his Russian counterparts and his negotiating tactics that resulted in a 28-point peace plan widely accused of being a Kremlin wishlist.
The phone call between Steve Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov
*As reported by Bloomberg
14 October, 2025
Phone rings
Steve Witkoff
Hi Yuri.
Yuri Ushakov
Yeah Steve hi, how are you?
Steve Witkoff
Good Yuri. How you doing?
Yuri Ushakov
I am ok. Congratulations my friend.
Steve Witkoff
Thank you.
Yuri Ushakov
You made a great job. Just a great job. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.
Steve Witkoff
Thank you Yuri and thanks for your support. I know your country supported it and I thank you.
Yuri Ushakov
Yes, yes, yes. Yes. You know that’s why we suspend the organisation of first Russian-Arabic summit.
Steve Witkoff
Yes
Yuri Ushakov
Yeah, because we think that you are making the real job there in the region.
Steve Witkoff
Well listen. I am going to tell you something. I think, I think if we can get the Russia-Ukraine thing solved, everybody’ll be jumping for joy.
Yuri Ushakov
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you need to solve only one problem. [laughs]
Steve Witkoff
What?
Yuri Ushakov
Russian-Ukrainian war.
Steve Witkoff
I know! How do we get that solved?
Yuri Ushakov
My friend, I just want your advice. Do you think that it will be useful if our bosses will talk on the phone?
Steve Witkoff
Yes, I do.
Yuri Ushakov
You do. And when you think it could be possible?
Steve Witkoff
I think as soon as you suggest, my guy is ready to do it.
Yuri Ushakov
Ok, ok.
Steve Witkoff
Yuri, Yuri, here’s what I would do. My recommendation.
Yuri Ushakov
Yes, please.
Steve Witkoff
I would make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement, that you supported it, you supported it, that you respect that he is a man of peace and you’re just, you’re really glad to have seen it happen. So I would say that. I think from that it’s going to be a really good call. Because — let me tell you what I told the President. I told the president that you – that the Russian Federation has always wanted a peace deal. That’s my belief. I told the president I believe that. And I believe the question is — the issue is is that we have two nations that are having a hard time coming to a compromise and when we do, we’re going to have a peace deal. I’m even thinking that maybe we set out like a 20-point peace proposal, just like we did in Gaza. We put a 20-point Trump plan together that was 20 points for peace and I’m thinking maybe we do the same thing with you. My point is this…
Yuri Ushakov
Ok, ok my friend. I think that very point our leaders could discuss. Hey Steve, I agree with you that he will congratulate, he will say that Mr. Trump is a real peace man and so and so. That he will say.
Steve Witkoff
But here’s what I think would be amazing.
Yuri Ushakov
Ok, ok.
Steve Witkoff
What if, what if… hear me out…
Yuri Ushakov
I will discuss that with my boss and then I come back to you. Ok?
Steve Witkoff
Yeah because listen to what I’m saying. I just want you to say, maybe just to say this to president Putin, because you know I have the deepest respect for president Putin.
Yuri Ushakov
Yes, Yes.
Steve Witkoff
Maybe he says to president Trump: you know, Steve and Yuri discussed a very similar 20-point plan to peace and that could be something that we think might move the needle a little bit, we’re open to those sorts of things — to explore what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done. Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere. But I’m saying instead of talking like that, let’s talk more hopefully because I think we’re going to get to a deal here. And I think Yuri, the president will give me a lot of space and discretion to get to the deal.
Yuri Ushakov
I see…
Steve Witkoff
…so if we can create that opportunity that after this I talked to Yuri and we had a conversation I think that could lead to big stuff.
Yuri Ushakov
Ok, that sounds good. Sounds good.
Steve Witkoff
And here’s one more thing: Zelensky is coming to the White House on Friday.
Yuri Ushakov
I know that. [chuckles]
Steve Witkoff
I will go to that meeting because they want me there, but I think if possible we have the call with your boss before that Friday meeting.
Yuri Ushakov
Before, before — yeah?
Steve Witkoff
Correct.
Yuri Ushakov
Ok, ok. I got your advice. So I discuss that with my boss and then I come back to you, ok?
Steve Witkoff
Ok Yuri, I’ll speak to you soon.
Yuri Ushakov
Great, great. Thank you so much. Thanks you.
Steve Witkoff
Bye, bye.
Yuri Ushakov
Bye.
Call ends
The plan, which has since been amended, granted Moscow the entire Donbas region, which it has failed to conquer, banned Ukraine from joining Nato and dramatically cut the size of its military.
“It’s not negotiating, it’s deal-making,” said Ms Hill, who is one of few people both to have worked for Mr Trump and dined with Putin. “In a diplomatic negotiation, you are trying to get some kind of concession from the other side.”
She added: “It’s what [Mr Trump] was doing in his first administration as well.”
During his 2019 impeachment trial, Bill Taylor, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, testified that relations with Ukraine had been “fundamentally undermined” by Mr Trump threatening to withhold aid unless Volodymyr Zelensky, then the newly elected president, agreed to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in the country.
Ms Hill also testified during the trial, telling the court that Gordon Sondland, then the US ambassador to Europe, was carrying out a “domestic political errand” for the president in Ukraine that “diverged” from official US foreign policy.
Mr Trump insisted at the time there had been no such deal, or exchange of favours, in Ukraine policy and dismissed the allegations as a “smear campaign”.
Ms Hill, a British Kremlin watcher and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, suggested the controversial 28-point peace plan likely stemmed from a desire to appease Mr Trump after his demand for Ukraine to accept a deal by Thanksgiving “sent everybody else scrambling”.
“It really seems everyone’s just trying to sell Trump on an idea that they have, to carry out his wish to have a deal,” she said. “They don’t see this as being about state interests, it’s all about finding something of interest to Trump.
“It’s a deal that favours the Russians, but it also favours Trump. He wants the Russians basically to sign up to anything, as long as it ends this conflict, and then they’ll force Ukraine to agree.”
The leaked conversation led to Mr Trump holding a call with Putin a day before Volodymyr Zelensky’s White House visit where the president subsequently refused to hand over long-range Tomahawk missiles, noting that Putin “didn’t like” the idea.
It has sparked fresh concerns about Mr Witkoff’s lack of diplomatic experience. He previously worked as a New York real estate developer and is Mr Trump’s long-term golfing buddy.
During the call, Mr Witkoff said he had told the president that “the Russian Federation has always wanted a peace deal”.
However, Ms Hill said that Russia is only interested in peace if it means the “capitulation of Ukraine. That’s what Putin’s been saying all along.”
Repeated attempts by the Americans to bring Putin to the negotiating table, including a high-stakes summit in Alaska, have raised hopes that a deal is close, only for talks to break down.
According to Ms Hill, Mr Witkoff’s approach is reminiscent of “an older school of diplomacy”, drawing comparisons with European envoys during the 19th Century Concert of Europe and Cardinal de Richelieu, the influential foreign secretary to the French king, Louis XIII.
“It’s just ripped out of the pages of history,” she said. “We’re back to those old days of secret diplomacy and back-room deals.”
Defending the deal over the weekend, JD Vance, the vice-president, said that peace “won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians” but might be reached by “smart people living in the real world”.
But Ms Hill argues this form of cloak-and-dagger diplomacy is unlikely to bring an end to the conflict. “If we want to get something that’s a substantive, genuine peace deal between states, it needs to be transparent,” she said.
‘Plan has hallmarks of shady business deal’
She added that the plan “has all the hallmarks” of a shady business deal designed to extract financial profit from the war-torn country.
“This is basically an elite deal by a group of people who have an interest, not in what’s happening on the ground or what happens to all of the people who are suffering from this, but in themselves. They are the people who can make some money from the deal.”
The original plan was reportedly drawn up by Mr Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, with Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s economic adviser, following days of negotiations in Miami without Kyiv present.
Sources told Reuters that the agreement drew heavily from a Russian-authored paper submitted to the Trump administration in October, an allegation the White House has denied.
On Tuesday, Mr Trump said the original plan had been “fine-tuned” following input from Moscow and Kyiv, and that there were a “few remaining points of disagreement” following negotiations that have whittled it down to 19 points.
Batting away suggestions that Mr Witkoff had gone over his head, he told reporters that he had not heard the tape but called it “a very standard form of negotiation”.
“He’s got to sell this to Ukraine, he’s got to sell Ukraine to Russia,” the president said. “That’s what a dealmaker does.”
Addressing the deal for the first time on Thursday, Putin said the plan could be the “basis for future agreements” but that no “final version” had been agreed upon.
Mr Witkoff is due to meet Putin in Moscow next week to iron out the final stages of the peace deal.
Reading this article makes me want to vomit.
Can a despicable prick, who is a traitor, a multiple draft dodger, a sick pedophile, a malignant narcissist, an adulterer, a cheating businessman who bankrupted 6 businesses, and who is deeply corrupt surprised by his grossly incompetent and low-intelligent chief “negotiator’s” subservience to the worst terrorist on this planet? No, he is NOT, because that’s what TACO wants.
Moscow CONTROLS Washington.
Sadly, I’m not surprised about any of this. I think it’s only the tip of the iceberg, who the hell knows what the WH is really sharing with Putin.