Steve Witkoff is teaching a master class to Russian officials on how to get what they want from Donald Trump.
On Oct. 14, Trump’s special envoy advised Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, on how the Russian dictator should curry favor with Trump before broaching a proposed peace plan between Russia and war-torn Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
During the five-minute call, Witkoff told Putin’s henchman that the Russian president should personally phone Trump, 79, ahead of his planned meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—where Zelensky hoped, but ultimately failed, to secure long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles—to congratulate him on the Gaza ceasefire.
The distinction with a difference is that anyone can flatter Trump’s ego the exact same way. Mamdani seems to have done it. There’s nothing particular about Russia that makes it work.
No yeah I didn’t mean to imply that this is something that is particular to Russia, or any other entity for that matter. I think the functions and methods must be analyzed independently of who they concern on either side of the equation