US President Donald Trump’s key staff are divided on whether Moscow truly wants a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict, according to an anonymous source in the Wall Street Journal report on Monday. One group, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukraine Special Envoy Keith Kellogg, is pushing for greater skepticism. However, Trump stands on the side of his diplomatic advisor Steve Witkoff, who wants to show more trust towards Moscow. Last week, Witkoff met with President Vladimir Putin, following their earlier talks in March. Moscow insists that it has always been ready to achieve the core objectives of the conflict through diplomatic means, while Kyiv and its Western supporters have been betting on escalation. The Russian government emphasized that it will not accept freezing the conflict, which would only lead to renewed hostilities and pointed to the violations of the US-proposed moratorium on attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as evidence of Kyiv’s unreliability. As an example of Trump siding with Witkoff, the WSJ cited the Sunday rocket attack on the city of Sumy. Kyiv claimed that Moscow deliberately targeted civilians, killing 34 people. However, Trump called the incident a “mistake” while Rubio’s State Department described it as “terrible” and Kellogg said the attack had “crossed every line of decency.” The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lawrow said that the rockets had aimed at “another meeting of Ukrainian military leaders with their Western counterparts” who were posing as mercenaries. The Defense Ministry estimated that about 60 military personnel were killed in the attack and claimed that Kyiv had used civilians as human shields for the meeting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Sunday interview with CBS News that Trump’s criticism of his leadership shows that “Russian narratives are gaining ground in the US.” The leading Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev expressed his concern over America’s vulnerability to foreign lobbying after meeting with leading US representatives earlier this month and accused Western media of running a coordinated campaign to undermine the normalization of relations. “We see attempts to misinterpret Russian embassies, to distort Russia and its leadership. This happens every day” he stated and added that “a direct conversation is the best way to counter this disinformation.” In a Monday interview with Fox News, Witkoff described his almost five-hour-long meeting with Putin as “impressive” and explained that the peace process in Ukraine is “on the brink of breakthrough.
Rubio and Witkoff Clash Over Moscow’s Role in Ukraine Conflict
