President Vladimir Putin
By agency reports
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he will not hold talks with the CIA, the State Department, or a four-star general.
He asked, by name, for Steve Witkoff, a Miami real estate figure who’s been in Trump’s inner circle for decades.
Steve Witkoff, influential U.S. real estate mogul
Local reports said that a Russian oligarch passed the request through the Saudi crown prince.
Putin insisted that he would negotiate with one person only, not diplomats, not spies, not even someone who speaks Russian.
Just Witkoff, and he had to come completely alone. No translator. No aides. No official escort.
Just a direct meeting behind closed doors with someone outside the traditional diplomatic world.
Russian intelligence had profiled Trump’s team and viewed Witkoff as the most “psychologically compatible” choice to open a channel.
They ruled out General Kellogg because his daughter ran a charity in Ukraine. That detail alone was enough for the Kremlin to push for someone else.
So now the person leading sensitive talks with Moscow is a private-sector figure who sees negotiation as a matter of human connection and deal structure, not protocol.
Witkoff has met with Putin 6 times so far. One session reportedly lasted 5 hours. After one of those trips, he returned with a freed American prisoner.
He doesn’t work out of the State Department and isn’t surrounded by a large foreign policy team. He’s briefed by Sec. Rubio and the National Security Council, then reports directly to Trump.
This is who’s now shaping the U.S. approach to Russia, Ukraine, and possibly the war’s end, a war that has already caused more than 1,000,000 casualties.
Witkoff says he’s offering Ukraine access to 800 billion dollars in investment if a deal is reached, though Kyiv points out he hasn’t visited them yet.
The brics news reports that European allies say they’re not fully looped in.
But Putin is, and he’s the one who decides who would sit across from him.
