Questions swirl about whether Witkoff misunderstood Putins offer on Ukraine

Questions are mounting over whether President Trump’s special Envoy Steve Witkoff misinterpreted Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s exact conditions for bringing about an end to his country’s bloody war on Ukraine.Witkoff met with Putin for about three hours in the Kremlin last Wednesday, and their discussion set off a chain of events that ultimately led to President Trump announcing a one-on-one with the Russian leader in Alaska this coming Friday.But privately, some European allies are complaining that they received varying accounts of what led to the supposed breakthrough with Putin that caused Trump to tout “progress” had been made.After Witkoff’s lengthy meeting with Putin, Trump held a call with his European counterparts to brief them on what the Russian leader told his envoy.Trump initially implied that Russia was willing to potentially pull its forces out of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in exchange for complete control of Donetsk, per the Wall Street Journal.Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Donetsk are territories in the southeast of Ukraine.Since the war broke out, Russia has been keen on taking control over four territories it has deemed oblasts: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.That’s in addition to its annexation of Crimea in 2014.But Witkoff later made a different claim to Europeans last Thursday that Putin offered to freeze and withdraw from the front line, according to the report.

By last Friday, Witkoff clarified to his counterparts that what Putin actually offered was for Ukraine to pull out of Donetsk in exchange for a cease-fire.Several European officials are speculating that Witkoff also may have misunderstood or even talked past Putin on other key details of what was actually proposed.Some believe that Putin called for a “peaceful withdrawal” from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in eastern Ukraine and that Witkoff misunderstood that to mean pulling Russian troops out of there, German outlet BILD reported.However, they believe that P...