Putin's envoy arranged for Witkoff to present Russian "peace plan" as his own – Bloomberg

Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, discussed a strategy to present the Russian "peace plan" proposal to US President Donald Trump's team so that the Americans could pass these ideas off as their own initiative.

Source: Bloomberg, which obtained a recording of the conversation

Details: Bloomberg has published the content of the conversation between Ushakov and Dmitriev which took place on 29 October. The Russian officials discussed passing the document to Steve Witkoff, a long-time friend of Donald Trump and the US president's special envoy.

According to the Kremlin's plan, Witkoff was to receive the Russian draft of the proposed settlement and present it as his own plan for resolving the war in Ukraine.

During the discussion, Dmitriev suggested handing over the document "informally" so that the American side could present it as their own work. He also expressed hope that the text would remain as close as possible to the Russian original.

Quote from Dmitriev: "I think we'll just make this paper from our position, and I'll informally pass it along, making it clear that it's all informal. And let them do like their own. But, I don't think they'll take exactly our version, but at least it'll be as close to it as possible."

Details: Ushakov expressed concerns about such a scheme. Putin's aide was worried that Witkoff might change the content of the plan and then claim that these changes had been agreed with Moscow, which could lead to a misinterpretation of Russia's demands.

Quote from Ushakov: "Well, that's exactly the point. They might not take and say that it was agreed with us. That's what I'm afraid of... They might twist it later, that's all. There is that risk."

Details: In response, Dmitriev assured Ushakov that he would ask Witkoff to keep the wording "word for word" and that everything would be done "neatly". He also noted that Ushakov would be able to discuss the document personally with Witkoff later.

It later emerged that, after receiving the Russian document, the American side most likely did not even try to produce a proper translation. The text was simply run through an automatic translator.

Background:

• The Guardian earlier conducted a linguistic analysis of the so-called "peace plan". Experts identified many obvious Russianisms not characteristic of native English speakers.
• In particular, the document contained many passive grammatical constructions, a hallmark of the Russian official style but something extremely rare in English on such a scale. The published recordings confirmed suspicions that the so-called "Trump plan" had in fact been written in Moscow and translated literally.
• Moreover, a group of US senators said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told them the US "peace plan" was in fact a Russian proposal rather than a US initiative.
• They said that during their conversation Rubio had referred to the "peace plan" as a "Russian proposal" rather than a US initiative.
• Rubio, however, insists that the "peace plan" was developed by the United States and is "based on input from the Russian side".

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