Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff explained Sunday to CNN’s Jake Tapper how President Donald Trump is working to end the Ukraine-Russia war after Tapper questioned Russia’s view of the president.
Following through on his campaign promise to bring peace to ongoing foreign wars, Trump has worked to negotiate with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy within his first month in office. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Tapper asked Witkoff if he believes “it’s good that the Russians think that the Trump administration is in total alignment with the way that Putin sees things,” after playing a clip from Russian state media in which a Russian media host is seen agreeing with Trump’s sentiments about the war.
“I think we’ve had, Jake, by my estimation almost a million and a half deaths here. Finally, we have a leader that is President Trump who is determined to end the carnage. So the only way you’re going to end the carnage is if you have a relationship with the leaders of both countries that are involved,” Witkoff said.
Trump announced that negotiations to end the Ukraine-Russia war were underway, following a call with Putin about the ongoing issue and concerns over the death toll. In a post on Truth Social, Trump described his conversation with the Russian president, stating the two had “reflected” on both nations’ “great history” before agreeing they wanted to “stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.”
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Witkoff went on to detail how he also had a meeting with Putin and noted there has been “positive conversation” with Zelenskyy as well.
“I went over to Russia. I had a meeting with President Putin. It was a long meeting, positive, constructive,” Witkoff added. “Lots of good things got discussed in large part because the president enjoyed a positive relationship with President Putin from his first term in office.”
“That then evolved into a positive conversation with the president on a telephone call from the White House. Then there was a positive conversation with President Zelenskyy, so I think you’ve got to have these relationships. You’ve got to have communication. That’s the only way you get deals done,” Witkoff concluded.
Since February 2022, former President Joe Biden has involved the U.S. in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, providing equipment and training to Ukraine, which has cost the U.S. over $130 billion in aid. With Russia avoiding major conflicts during Trump’s first term, the country later began to warn former President Joe Biden in December 2021 to not expand NATO to Ukraine, after amassing tens of thousands of Russian troops on the Ukraine border.
While more Americans are now in favor of a quick end to the war between the two countries, Zelenskyy pushed back on negotiations publicly after Trump announced his conversation with Putin.
According to the BBC, Zelenskyy stated there could be no peace deal without Ukraine’s involvement, despite having previously discussed ending the war with Trump in July 2024. Before Zelenskyy’s comments about negotiations, he told Reuters on Feb. 7 that he was open to making a deal with the U.S. regarding Trump’s request for Ukraine to supply the U.S. with rare earths and other minerals in exchange for continued financial aid.
Following Zelenskyy’s public push back, Trump took to Truth Social to call out the Ukrainian president, stating that he likely “wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going,” and noting how Zelenskyy admitted that billions of U.S. aid for the country had gone “missing.” Notably, during an interview with the Associated Press on Feb. 1, Zelenskyy stated he had only received about $75 billion of the $177 billion the United States had approved on Ukraine.
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