MOSCOW: Russia will make no big concessions on a peace plan for Ukraine, a senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday, after a leaked recording of a call involving US envoy Steve Witkoff showed he had advised Moscow on how to pitch to Donald Trump.

Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow next week for talks with Russian leaders about a possible plan to end the nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two.

Moscow raised concerns about the leak to Bloomberg News of the transcript of a call between Witkoff and Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov in which the US envoy advised Ushakov on how to pitch a peace plan to Trump.

Trump, on Air Force One, brushed aside a question from a reporter about why Witkoff appeared to be coaching Russian officials as simply “what a dealmaker does” and “a very standard form of negotiation”.

US president dismisses a question about the episode, saying ‘this is what a dealmaker does’

“Russia has a lot more people, and a lot more soldiers, than Ukraine. I think it’s a good deal for Ukraine,” the president observed.

‘Hybrid warfare’

But Russia said the leak was an unacceptable attempt to undermine peace efforts and amounted to hybrid warfare.

Ushakov said he had used WhatsApp to speak to Witkoff on several occasions and the Russian newspaper Kommersant, which interviewed Ushakov, ran a story headlined: “Who set up Steve Witkoff?”

Bloomberg said it had reviewed a recording of the call. It was not clear how Bloomberg got the recording of the conversation.

A Bloomberg News spokesperson said: “We stand by our story.”

Trump said on Tuesday Witkoff would meet Putin and that Jared Kushner, who helped negotiate the deal that brought about an uneasy ceasefire in Gaza, would also be involved.

“As for Witkoff, I can say that a preliminary agreement has been reached that he will come to Moscow next week,” Ushakov told reporters.

Asked by reporters whether a peace deal was close, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russian news agency Interfax as saying: “Wait, it’s premature to say that yet.”

Russian forces control more than 19 per cent of Ukraine following Moscow’s 2022 invasion, and have advanced this year at the fastest pace since 2022.

Ukraine and its European allies echo former US president Joe Biden in saying the invasion is an “imperial-style land grab”.

Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging Nato and encroaching on “Moscow’s sphere of influence”.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2025