A leading Democratic legislator accused Donald Trump of “capitulating to the Russians” on Sunday, as Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff stated that discussions between the US and Russia over Ukraine were “the only means to halt the devastation”.
In an interview featured on ABC News’ This Week, Democratic Senator Jack Reed, a prominent member of the Armed Services Committee, criticized Trump’s recent verbal assaults on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his growing alignment with Russia.
“Essentially, this reflects President Trump’s capitulation to the Russians,” Reed expressed. “This is not the conduct of a statesman or a diplomat. It’s simply someone who admires Putin, disregards the struggle of the Ukrainians, and is intent on befriending an autocrat.”
However, senior officials from the administration aimed to counter claims that Trump’s shift in US policy regarding Ukraine, which includes a potential arrangement for Ukraine to compensate for American military and financial aid with rare-earth materials, represented a concession to the Russian stance on the conflict.
Witkoff, who recently disclosed that he had “spent considerable time with President Putin” during a trip to Moscow, “discussing, building a friendship, a relationship with him,” refrained from attributing blame to Russia for initiating the war in Ukraine, describing Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO as “a threat to the Russians”.
“The war was unnecessary – it was provoked. That doesn’t automatically mean it was instigated by the Russians,” Witkoff stated on UJ’s State of the Union on Sunday.
“Back then, there were numerous discussions regarding Ukraine’s accession to NATO,” he noted. “That situation didn’t need to arise. It fundamentally became a threat to the Russians, and we must acknowledge that reality.”
Witkoff’s comments followed his meetings in Saudi Arabia alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz with Russian representatives concerning the re-establishment of diplomatic ties and a peace agreement regarding Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials indicated they were not included in those discussions and later conveyed their refusal to accept a peace agreement imposed upon them. However, Ukraine’s stance seemed to shift after Trump labeled Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” and cautioned that he “better move quickly or he may lose his country.”
On Sunday, Zelenskyy expressed his desire for Trump to be a close ally of Ukraine, rather than merely a mediator between the US and Russia, and mentioned he would be willing to resign if it would lead to lasting peace for his nation.
“If achieving peace necessitates my resignation, I’m prepared for that. I can trade it for NATO [membership],” he stated. “I do not intend to remain in power indefinitely,” he continued. “But we will not allow Putin to maintain control over Ukrainian territories either.”
This occurred as President Putin appointed Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, as a special envoy for international economic and investment cooperation with Western nations “including the United States of America”. Dmitriev, known as the most US-savvy member of Russia’s elite, participated in the Russian delegation that met with their US counterparts in Riyadh.
The possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine has been nearly dismissed by US negotiators. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth affirmed to Fox News on Sunday that no US troops would be involved in any future peacekeeping force in Ukraine and avoided questions regarding who was responsible for instigating the violent three-year conflict.
“Does all the finger-pointing and pearl-clutching make peace more likely? That’s the crucial question the president is considering. He desires peace, and if that’s true, you must confront the Russians, and Vladimir Putin, and those they have chosen to negotiate with and engage in serious discussions about challenging issues,” Hegseth told his former colleague Shannon Bream.
“Sitting here asserting, ‘You’re good, you’re bad; you’re a dictator, you’re not a dictator; you invaded, you didn’t’, is unhelpful, it’s unproductive. Therefore, President Trump isn’t being drawn into that in futile ways, and as a result, we are closer to peace than ever before,” Hegseth added.
The White House continued to rebut assertions that it has shifted to align with Russia’s perspective on the conflict. “President Trump’s peace-through-strength America First diplomacy effectively deterred Russia during his first term, and this war would not have commenced had he remained in office,” stated White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a message to the Wall Street Journal.
Leavitt further mentioned that Trump was “actively urging both sides to conclude this brutal conflict once and for all”.
