Whether by accident or design, Vladimir Putin has a useful idiot running America. International diplomacy has been turned on its head, enemies made friends, allies threatened, international laws defoliated.
Russian strategic policy, known as the Gerasimov doctrine, argues that chaos in the ranks of the enemy is victory and a path to greatness. By that standard, Putin should be stringing up bunting in the Kremlin.
He has achieved unimagined strategic effect by manipulating the Trump administration, which has contorted itself in its efforts to force a Russian victory on Ukraine and against Europe.
In the latest effort by the Oval Office to continue its cringing before the Russian throne, Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff – alongside business buddy and son-in-law of the president Jared Kushner – travelled to Moscow for talks.
After five hours with the Russian president, the talks ended with a blunt conclusion from Kushner that “we are no closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine”.
Why the US taking the lead in these negotiations is being countenanced by its Nato “allies” is baffling, were it not for the fact that there is no leader in Europe prepared to say out loud what they must all, surely, know. That Trump is not a broker, he’s not even a dishonest broker when it comes to Ukraine – he is on the wrong side.
Witkoff used to be seen as staggeringly inept. He turns up in the Kremlin fawning like Gollum, takes no notes, uses a Kremlin translator, and emerges from meetings with Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, brimming with admiration.
He described Putin in one Tucker Carlson interview as a “great guy”, “super smart”, “honest”, and “not a bad guy”. Descriptions that have disgusted the families of Putin’s dead critics like Alexei Navalny and every resident of the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine’s Donbas, where Putin’s troops have scorched the earth and killed mercilessly.
Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.
In one of the least surprising developments in the war, the Russian leader rejected the latest version of a ceasefire plan that was worked out with Ukraine and European leaders.
Because he wants to turn it all back to the earlier version negotiated with Witkoff by his envoy Kirill Dmitriev, in secret; Dmitriev is Witkoff’s escort in Moscow.
The same Witkoff that the Bloomberg agency revealed had coached Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, on how to manipulate Trump. In what must have been an intelligence intercept of Witkoff’s unsecured personal mobile phone leaked to Bloomberg, he’s recorded explaining how Putin could get inside Trump’s head and affect an imminent visit to the White House by Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president.
In Western intelligence circles, Trump’s envoy has been considered a fool and a liability for months – partly due to his misuse of a personal phone in countries that will always penetrate its contents.
European spies used to call him “Steve Witless”. Now he’s “Dim Philby”, suggesting that he’s too thick to realise he’s working for the wrong side. The original Kim Philby was a clever traitor, and he knew it.
