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The US promise of NATO membership for Kiev triggered the hostilities, Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, has said
The Ukraine conflict was “provoked” and it is wrong to solely blame Russia, Steve Witkoff, a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, has said. Moscow had to respond to a security threat created by the West’s promises to accept Ukraine into NATO, he stated.
Witkoff made the remarks in an interview published by CNN on Tuesday, in which he was asked whether Washington was choosing the right side by holding talks with Moscow instead of continuing to funnel aid to Kiev.
The situation is not black-and-white, with Russians being “the bad guys,” Witkoff told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“The war didn’t need to happen, it was provoked,” he added. “It doesn’t necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians.”
According to Witkoff, “there were all kinds of conversations… about Ukraine joining NATO” prior to the conflict that were treated by Moscow as a direct threat to its security and prompted it to respond.
The US official also spoke about Russia’s readiness to swiftly end the conflict through negotiations, pointing to the talks held in Istanbul in the spring of 2022, shortly after Moscow began its military campaign.
The peace process came to an abrupt end in May of that year when Kiev withdrew from the talks after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged it to continue fighting.
Russian officials “have indicated that they are responsive” to ending the conflict by engaging in “cogent and substantive negotiations” in Istanbul, Witkoff said, adding that the two sides “came very, very close to signing something.”
The Türkiye-facilitated Russian-Ukrainian peace talks in 2022 resulted in a preliminary agreement for a treaty that would have seen Ukraine become a neutral nation with a limited military, backed by security guarantees from major world powers, including Russia.
According to Witkoff, the preliminary Istanbul agreement could be used by Washington as a framework and a “guidepost” for a future peace deal.
Last week, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky described the Istanbul talks as “an important reference point and the platform where the parties came closest to an agreement.” He also named Türkiye an “ideal host” for potential negotiations between Kiev, Moscow, and Washington.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly referred to the Istanbul agreements as a potential basis for any future peace deal with Kiev.
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