Ushakov then consulted Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy for international cooperation, to determine how firmly the Kremlin should stick to its demands.
The entire exchange became public after the Bloomberg news agency released recordings of the officials’ phone conversations.
The advisers had been holding behind-the-scenes talks on the outlines of a potential peace agreement, and Trump’s envoy openly coached the Kremlin on how to speak with the US president.
“I would make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement, that you supported it, you supported it, that you respect that he is a man of peace and you’re just, you’re really glad to have seen it happen. So I would say that,” Witkoff told Ushakov, referring to the momentum created by a recent Middle East agreement and pointing out the messaging he believed would resonate.
Given the mission assigned to him by the White House—to end "the ninth war" in under a year—this tone is hardly surprising and falls within the usual practice of communications among world leaders' advisers.
The problem is that Witkoff, who has little understanding of Russia or diplomatic norms (as Trump himself has openly acknowledged), allows himself to be manipulated far too easily.
For the Kremlin’s specialists in “active measures,” the appointment of a New York real estate developer to one of the most consequential foreign policy roles in the world must seem like a gift.
But an even bigger blow to Witkoff’s standing—because the leak directly undermines him—is Ushakov’s and Dmitriyev’s admission that the peace plan now under discussion originally came from Moscow.
Dmitriev suggested passing the Russian proposal to Washington informally, betting that the Trump administration would accept something close to Russia’s preferred outcome anyway.
And that is essentially what happened: the initial 28-point plan, while covering several strategic issues (and in that sense glaringly unprofessional), favored core Russian demands—ranging from recognition of territorial gains in Ukraine to interference in the political life of NATO’s eastern-flank states.
It’s hard to imagine a greater gift to Moscow.
While Russian forces—locked in an invasion that has now lasted almost as long as the so-called Great Patriotic War—remain bogged down in little-known villages in the Donbas, the United States put forward a plan that would limit the sovereignty of Central and Eastern European countries.
The naïveté involved in assuming that Russia might "renounce aggressive policies" hardly needs elaboration.
The leaked calls also highlight the growing dominance of "special envoys" over traditional diplomacy.
The timing of the leak—just as the United States undertakes its most serious effort yet to end an invasion nearly four years old—is no coincidence.
It remains unclear who conducted the surveillance (there is speculation about Ukrainian involvement), but one thing is certain: the State Department apparatus under Secretary of State Marco Rubio stands to benefit from the embarrassment.
This is the same apparatus whose counsel led to the cancellation of the planned summit in Budapest and which has recently entered a rivalry with J.D. Vance over succession in the post-Trump Republican landscape.
Adding to the intrigue, The Insider reports that one of the points omitted from the final 28-point plan was Russia’s supposed willingness to distance itself from its strategic partnership with Beijing in exchange for better relations with Washington and favorable terms in a settlement.
According to the report, Moscow even floated the idea of creating a "new Christian coalition" against China.
While these claims are almost certainly exaggerated, they underscore once again that Washington’s push to normalize relations with Russia does not stem from "Russophilia" but from strategic calculation.
In its search for a great-power partner—specifically, a nuclear superpower—to compete with Beijing, the US has shown a readiness to sideline the interests of smaller states.
In response to the leak, Trump merely said that Witkoff "is not pro-Russian" and that his task is to "sell" ideas to both sides—especially to the Russians, since that is the channel he was assigned to handle.
He added that the tapes would not affect the talks and that Witkoff would travel to Russia next week.
By downplaying the scandal, the president will likely try to shut down the controversy and allow negotiations to continue.
Leon Pińczak
The author is a security and international affairs analyst at the Polityka Insight think tank in Warsaw.