The US President’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has been accused of interfering with Ukraine’s Tomahawk missile deal and quoted as saying, “What good was a handful of missiles going to accomplish?” for Kyiv’s war, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy met with Donald Trump in the White House in October to try and secure American Tomahawk cruise missiles.
They would have been used to attack Russian oil refineries, but it appears Witkoff suggested that Kyiv seeks a US tariff instead of being supplied the long-range missiles, the WSJ reported.
Witkoff advised Kyiv to ask the US President to exempt them from US tariffs for the next decade, the US special envoy said this “would supercharge their economy.”
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Witkoff told the WSJ, “I’m in the deal settlement business. That’s why I’m here. We keep on knocking at the door and coming up with ideas.”
Last week Trump defended Witkoff after it was revealed he had allegedly advised the Kremlin secretly as to how to sell a Ukraine deal to the US President.
On Air Force One, Trump told reporters, “That’s a standard thing. He’s gotta sell this to Ukraine, he’s gotta sell Ukraine to Russia.
“That’s what a dealmaker does […] I haven’t heard it, but I heard it was standard negotiation. And I would imagine he’s saying the same thing to Ukraine, because each party has to give and take.”
Witkoff has been accused of being “an agent in the Oval Office” for Moscow and the so-called 28-point peace plan “gets worse every time we read it,” said, Shaun Pinner who is a former Ukrainian Marine and Prisoner of War held in Russia.
Shaun wrote, “According to Bloomberg’s reporting, Witkoff casually described how he had coached Russian contacts on manipulating Trump’s ego, emotional triggers and insecurities.
“The leaked audio allegedly captures conversations that map almost perfectly onto the logic embedded in the 28-point plan: pressure Ukraine, reward Russia, reduce US commitments, and package it all as a diplomatic victory for domestic consumption.
“If true, this is not soft influence. This is political engineering.
“And it fits neatly into the wider constellation of Kremlin-linked operations we’ve seen: Tenet Media laundering Russian narratives under the banner of “independent journalism,” Graham Phillips amplifying Kremlin propaganda from occupied territory, Nathan Gill jailed for spreading Kremlin-aligned disinformation, and the Trump administration’s increasingly erratic, transactional treatment of Ukraine’s survival.
“The 28-point plan was already viewed with deep suspicion in Kyiv. It demanded concessions disguised as peace, insecurity disguised as stability, and the abandonment of Ukraine’s sovereign rights disguised as “ending the war.”
“It ticked every box on the Kremlin’s wish list: territorial surrender, weakened sovereignty, diminished Western involvement, and the erosion of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself long-term.
“But the Witkoff revelation takes it even further. It raises the possibility that the plan wasn’t just aligned with Russian interests, it may have originated with them.
“The implications are devastating.
“If US policy was shaped, even partially, by individuals acting as conduits for Russian influence, then the plan isn’t merely flawed. It is compromised. And if Russia could steer or shape a document of this scale, then Western political structures face a vulnerability far greater than policymakers in Washington or Brussels are prepared to admit.”
