President Donald Trump’s special envoy defied tradition by not using his interpreter during three senior-level meetings with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, instead choosing to use translators provided by the Kremlin, a U.S. official and two Western officials briefed on the discussions said.
Steve Witkoff, who was assigned to broker an end to the war in Ukraine, saw Putin in Moscow for a few hours on Feb. 11, on March 13, and in St. Petersburg on April 11, and “used their translators,” one of the Western officials said. “If they talk to each other in Russian, he doesn’t know what they are saying,” the official said, speaking of Putin and the interpreters.
Witkoff, who was a real estate titan and cryptocurrency speculator, didn’t speak Russian. By utilizing Kremlin interpreters, he was risking that some of the subtlety of Putin’s words were lost and he wouldn’t have been able to independently corroborate what he was being told, two previous American ambassadors reported.
Anna Kelly, a White House deputy press secretary, stated in a statement that Witkoff “follows all security measures in coordination with the State Department.” Witkoff’s staff did not comment. The State Department and the Kremlin have also been requested for comment.
Tens of thousands of individuals have died since Putin began his war against Ukraine in February 2022. Trump ran on ending the conflict on “day one” and has made it a priority. Putin has demonstrated little enthusiasm for putting an end to the war, and in comments that aired Sunday, mentioned Russia’s nuclear arsenal as he spoke about ending the war.
The Russian president, who speaks some English, speaks through an interpreter in negotiations and while he is holding official meetings. He was accompanied by his special adviser Yuri Ushakov, who was Russia’s ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2008, and Kirill Dmitriev, his special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, during a meeting with Witkoff on April 25. An interpreter was part of Putin’s entourage.
A brief clip of the meeting published by the Kremlin indicates a beaming Witkoff walking into the room alone prior to shaking hands with Putin, who is also widely smiling. Witkoff does not seem to be joined by any experts or advisers who usually accompany American officials undertaking sensitive and complex negotiations.
When a woman crossed to sit with Witkoff, he gestured toward her and said, “Interpreter? Embassy? OK.”
NBC News asked Kelly, the White House deputy press secretary, and Witkoff’s staff if they knew who the woman was, but they did not say. The State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the Kremlin have also been contacted to comment.
Michael McFaul, who was once an American ambassador to Russia, said that relying on the Kremlin’s interpreter was “a very bad idea” that placed Witkoff “at a real disadvantage.”
“I speak Russian and have heard Kremlin interpreters and U.S. interpreters at the same meeting, and the language is never the same,” McFaul responded by email Wednesday.
Having a U.S. interpreter present also provides a more accurate written record of the meeting for the rest of the government, a so-called memorandum of conversation or “memcon,” McFaul said, who is now a professor of political science at Stanford University.
“After every meeting that I sat in, I debriefed the interpreter to ensure that we got it right, that we heard every word correctly, that we had the ‘memcom’ down exactly. You can’t do that with a Russian official,” he said.
Without written notes of the meetings, the process could get tricky for some of Trump’s other senior-level cabinet members, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s special ambassador to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, as they attempt to pursue the negotiations, McFaul stated.
“Why does Kellogg know what Witkoff concluded with Putin? He can only know from a ‘memcom,'” he stated.
Witkoff’s transactions involving sensitive matters as he brokers a central position in attempting to solve not just the war between Ukraine, but also the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza and the nuclear agreement with Iran, have come under scrutiny too.
Witkoff’s airplane, on which he travels to Russia for meetings, is not equipped with an impervious government communications package, two Western officials, including one previously named in this report, said. He has nevertheless made sensitive telephone calls from inside the U.S. Embassy beforehand before taking to his plane, said the officials.
NBC News contacted the White House National Security Council for comment and was directed to Witkoff’s team, which did not comment. The State Department has also been requested for comment.
Witkoff’s work seems to have produced little in terms of bringing an end to the war, at least from Russia’s perspective.
A plan that Trump should sit down with Putin during his upcoming week-long visit to Saudi Arabia was scuttled because there was no progress on Russia’s side toward a ceasefire, said two administration officials and one U.S. official who was briefed on the planning. A sit-down would have depended on Russia accepting a ceasefire in Ukraine, the administration officials said.
In a separate report, a European official stated that intelligence estimates suggest Putin is still wedded to maximalist objectives in the conflict in Ukraine and is not interested in reaching a negotiated agreement.
Putin has already stated that he would like Ukraine to leave four territories — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — which Russia illegally annexed soon after invading Ukraine in February 2022. He has also demanded that Ukraine guarantee never to join NATO, agree to limits on the size of its military, and safeguard Russian culture and language within the country.
Since his last encounter with Witkoff, the White House has inked an “economic partnership” agreement with Ukraine that will provide Washington with access to some of the war-torn country’s essential minerals and natural resources.
“The Ukrainians have been cooperative, flexible, supportive and willing to look ahead, but the Russians have not,” said William Taylor, a retired U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and current fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, adding that it was “standard, basic practice that you have your own interpreter,” in senior-level diplomatic negotiations.
Ukraine had accepted U.S. offers on an overall air, sea and land ceasefire, as well as extending a ceasefire to Black Sea shipping routes, he added.
A “term sheet” with 22 offers including a 30-day ceasefire has been prepared by American, European and Ukrainian negotiators, said one of the Western officials, noting that it addressed Putin’s insistence that the U.S. will not assist Ukraine’s entry into NATO.
If Putin is looking for an exit, here is his exit,” the official explained of the suggestions. Witkoff will need to approach them with the Russian president, they said.
In comments released Sunday, Putin stated Russia had enough power and means to bring the war in Ukraine to its natural end, though he wished there would be no necessity to utilize nuclear weapons.
In a state television film called “Russia, Kremlin, Putin, 25 years,” he explained, “There has been no necessity to apply those weapons. and I hope they will not be needed.