Ukrainian experts doubt Witkoff’s Putin talks can advance peace — NV analysis

Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy, will merely present Russian dictator Vladimir Putin with proposals developed by negotiating teams, only for Putin to reject them.

That is the prediction Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation, made about the Oct. 21 meeting between Trump’s envoy and the Kremlin leader in St. Petersburg.

“But so it doesn’t sound as though he’s rejecting them outright, he’ll simply say he agrees to everything, as long as you meet his conditions — the terms of capitulation,” added the lawmaker from the presidential Servant of the People party.

Events in Oslo the previous day informed Merezhko’s assessment.

This round of talks is also set to conclude in the Norwegian capital. Witkoff spent three hours speaking with Putin and is now returning to Oslo to brief negotiators on the outcome of his meeting with the Russian leader.

Meetings for the sake of meetings

“When diplomats say they’ve made progress, it usually means they have nothing to say and there are no concrete results,” Merezhko said, referring to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s remarks about the previous day’s talks between Ukrainian and U.S. delegations in Oslo.

The meeting also brought together Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his team, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Witkoff. The envoy’s regular negotiating partner, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, joined the discussions of peace plans by video link.

Following the talks, Witkoff traveled to St. Petersburg, where he presented the Russian side with a document outlining various options for peace proposals and security guarantees for Ukraine.

“We talked, among other things, about NATO, about Article 5, and also about an ‘Article 5 light’ option,” Zelenskyy said the previous day, referring to the Oslo discussions.

Another objective of Witkoff’s meeting with Putin was to propose direct negotiations involving Putin, Trump and Zelenskyy in an effort to secure a ceasefire.

Merezhko, however, believes the Oslo meeting was held merely to demonstrate that dialogue between Kyiv and Washington continues despite Trump’s recent negative remarks about Ukraine.

He pointed out that diplomatic practice generally calls for meetings between officials of equivalent rank: presidents meet presidents, while envoys meet other envoys.

“But here, on one side, we saw President Trump’s envoy, and on the other, an entire Ukrainian negotiating team led by the president,” the lawmaker said. “That struck me. There’s an obvious imbalance.”

Volodymyr Dubovyk, director of the Center for International Studies, offered a different perspective, arguing that Witkoff showed respect for Zelenskyy by traveling to where the Ukrainian president was staying.

Nevertheless, Dubovyk does not expect anything significant to emerge from the talks. At most, he believes the negotiations in the Norwegian capital gave Ukraine’s European partners an opportunity to demonstrate their support for the country.

‘Selling’ Ukraine

Neither American nor Ukrainian negotiators can achieve an outcome favorable to Kyiv under the current circumstances, the people interviewed by NV believe.

Merezhko argued that Witkoff is merely relaying Putin’s terms of capitulation to Ukraine, which the Americans diplomatically describe as a deal or compromise.

“What kind of compromise can there be when someone wants to kill you and you want to survive?” the lawmaker asked. “What kind of deal can you make here? That’s why I simply don’t believe there will be a result.”

Oleksandr Khara, executive director of the Center for Defense Strategies and an expert on foreign and security policy, believes the United States wants to “sell” Ukraine in exchange for restoring economic relations with Russia and securing secret deals benefiting Trump and his inner circle.

In particular, Kushner pressed for Ukraine to unilaterally halt its strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Khara warned that such behavior by the American side would only encourage the Kremlin to continue the war.

“They are saying that we have to make concessions on many issues to suspend the war and resolve the conflict later,” Khara said. “We have to give up Donbas just to put this stage of the war on hold, but, of course, it could resume at any time.”

“In fact, none of these conditions is the main thing for Putin. They are merely a step toward completely destroying Ukrainian statehood,” Merezhko explained. “Trump either doesn’t understand this or pretends not to.”

‘Things are going Putin’s way’

The United States is increasingly becoming an ally of Russia, the people interviewed by NV argued.

“When they bomb and kill children, Trump talks about how Russia is treating Ukraine fairly,” Merezhko recalled. “Only an ally of Putin could say that.”

The chairman of parliament’s foreign policy committee said Putin believes “things are going his way” because Trump is making pro-Kremlin statements, the United States is lifting restrictions on Russian diesel fuel, international pressure is not increasing, and leadership changes favorable to the Kremlin could occur in France and Germany — two key European powers.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to pressure Ukraine and play along with the Kremlin’s demands that Ukraine hold elections, Khara said.

“Zelenskyy is not the problem in this war. Putin is — an illegitimate leader who was put in power in 2000, and no one can ‘pry’ him out of that position,” the diplomat added.

Guarantees without guarantees

Ukraine’s allies have long been discussing security guarantees for the country, but no meaningful progress has been made.

“I have no expectations whatsoever from discussions about security guarantees. What guarantees can you expect from a country that has an interest in Ukraine having no guarantees at all?” Dubovyk said.

Merezhko believes nuclear deterrence against Russia is the only genuine safeguard, while everything else amounts to empty talk.

In his view, guarantees resembling NATO’s Article 5 collective defense provision would not work without the United States being genuinely prepared to launch a nuclear strike against Moscow.

Khara agreed that the United States cannot provide Ukraine with security guarantees because it fears a direct confrontation with Russia.

Dubovyk therefore believes Witkoff’s visit to Putin will merely confirm Washington’s growing rapprochement with Moscow and the White House’s unwillingness to exert pressure on Russia.

Khara shares that assessment. He expects Witkoff’s trip to produce only more agreements between the United States and Russia, along with further sanctions relief presented as a formal incentive for Putin to compromise but, in Khara’s view, actually intended to enrich Trump and those around him.

“Trump accepted Putin’s proposal that the three of them — Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping — meet to decide the fate of Ukraine and, by and large, Europe. That’s their vision,” Khara explained. “Clearly, this does not lead to peace in Ukraine or peace and security in Europe. The United States has no strategy, and that has to do with Trump himself.”

All those interviewed believe the current negotiations are doing nothing to bring the war closer to an end.

“For Putin, war is the only way to remain in power. The very fact of our survival is a defeat for Putin,” Merezhko said.

The lawmaker concluded that negotiations could produce results only if Russia faced strong pressure. Instead, Ukraine is the only side facing pressure.

Symbolically, Zelenskyy will not wait in Oslo for special envoy Steve Witkoff to return from his negotiations in Russia.

“I’m not waiting for Witkoff in Oslo. We have to move on. We have to return to Ukraine. We’ll see what the results are,” the Ukrainian leader told Polish news agency PAP.