OPINION: Wazzup With Witkoff?, War Crimes and Children, Buzzing Around Belgorod

As we expected, Germany in a major shift of historical scale, decided to re-arm and become the engine of European military independence.

Ukraine will get a piece of that directly but the real significance is that the European security structure dating back to the end of World War II is in its death throes. Even if the United States reverses its stance towards Europe and Russia, I can see no future in which America is not eventually a marginal player in European defense.

Likewise, this might be the beginning of the European transition to full global power status, on par with China or the US.

It would, as has long been the case in European geopolitics, come down to how comfortable the rest of Europe might be living next to an extremely well-armed Germany. Again.

This review kicks off with some comments by the Trump administration’s main negotiator with Russia on the ceasefire deal, a real estate rich guy named Steve Witkoff.

We are supposed to believe this guy is smart? Doesn’t he know people will see this stuff?

As many of you have noted, the Trump administration has shoved Florida politician and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the background on the Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

Last week the White House openly demoted another member of that negotiating process, a former US Lieutenant General named Keith Kellogg.

As their replacement, the Trump team has pushed a New York real estate mogul named Steve Witkoff (image, charity function, attractive US pop star included) into the lead negotiator role.

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Last week Witkoff was closeted with Vladimir Putin, for hours, as Trump’s personal representative on the ceasefire talks.

The White House tells us Witkoff is a skilled negotiator and a man with unique deal-making abilities. I’ve found estimates putting his net worth at about $150 million.

So who is this guy? The internet tells me he was born in NYC in 1957 and that his father was a successful ladies’ clothes manufacturer. In other words, his family is old but not ancient New York money. He went to expensive Hosfra University on Long Island, got a doctorate in law, and went into commercial real estate law practice.

Witkoff began buying office buildings in the New York area in the 1990s. His foot in the door apparently was a big savings and loan collapse in NYC at the time that forced bankruptcies and put a lot of undervalued properties on the market, which he swooped up. Witkoff’s portfolio expanded relentlessly and by 2021 his family business owned about 70 properties. They seem to be hotels, apartment buildings, and office buildings in the usual suspect locations like NYC, Miami, and Las Vegas.

He met Trump in the 1980s as a lawyer on a Trump real estate deal and he is a longtime golfing buddy. In business he is known as a risk-taker, a guy who will put a whole lot of his own money into a development project rather than staying conservative and only investing where banks will front the capital.

His websites say he has a few overseas properties, but aside from London, I can’t find out where. It seems positive he knows no foreign languages and has little experience abroad, because for high-end Americans, London isn’t really abroad, the market caters to them.

He is, nonetheless, Trump’s main man on the Russia-Ukraine negotiations, and so the single individual right now most responsible for ending the biggest war in history since World War II.

Witkoff interviewed with Tucker Carlson yesterday. Here is a direct quote from Witkoff answering a question on how he sees the Russo-Ukraine War being brought to an end:

”First of all, I think the largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions, Donbas, Crimea. You know, the names, Luhansk, and there’s two others. They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule. I think, that’s the key issue in the conflict. So that’s the first thing. When that gets settled – and we’re having very, very positive conversations…the question is, will the world acknowledge, that those are Russian territories. Will it end up, can Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? ”

The Carslon interview also had a section in which Witkoff says he believes Putin prayed for Trump after Trump got shot, and that Putin is a pretty good guy, not an adversary. But I’ll spare you.

The point is, this is what the top US negotiator on the Russia-Ukraine War, the man talking on behalf of the United States directly to Vladimir Putin, is saying in public.

This is the official US position.

That position is constructed on lies and falsehoods that should disqualify the man from any association with the US government in any capacity – never mind as the guy responsible for talks between the world’s biggest and second-biggest nuclear powers.

Witkoff is openly declaring that the United States advocates the Russian position. It is not concealed. It is directly hostile to Ukraine and Ukrainian national security.

The thing is, just as obviously, the United States is incapable of forcing major concessions from Ukraine. After all, Russia went to war and got 900,000 of its citizens killed or wounded in an attempt to get Ukrainian concessions. Look how that turned out.

Unless Witkoff and Trump back off their position, anyone thinking the ceasefire talks could get results is a moron. I have no doubt he is an intelligent man, but in public, sorry, he’s talking like a fool.

The Russians will love everything Witkoff told Carlson, it is simply a statement of fact that he repeated word-for-word Kremlin talking points on Ukraine.

But the Ukrainians and the Europeans won’t have any part of it. Without the Ukrainians and the Europeans, there is no peace deal.

Point by talking point:

• Wiktoff said the big issue is Ukrainian territory. Not so. It is that Russia invaded sovereign Ukrainian territory in an unprovoked act of aggression. Russian claims to Ukrainian territory are illegitimate and even if the Trump team chooses to pretend otherwise, democratic Europe will back Ukraine, as will most of the international community. Witkoff’s assumption here is that Ukraine is isolated against Russia. This is absurd.
• Witkoff says the Ukrainian territories Russia wants are all Russian-speaking. Not so. They are predominantly Russian-speaking and certainly, where Russia has invaded, a state campaign is in progress to eliminate other language use. However, first place, there are and pretty much always have been islands of ethnic minorities, particularly Tartars, Ukrainians, Greeks, and Armenians. But second place, far more importantly, support for Russia in those regions is almost directly linked to the level of education and dependence on state subsidies. The poorer the individual or the more the individual lives off the government (be it pension or insider oligarch deal) the more the individual likes Russia.
• Witkoff says the four territories Russia wants held referendums to join Russia which voters overwhelmingly supported. Not so. The votes Witkoff is referring to were held at the point of automatic rifles held by Russian soldiers or local militia armed, paid, and deployed by the Russian state.

It is shocking – and long-term readers will know I use an emotion-linked term like that almost never – that a US official would assert otherwise in public. This is an epic lie on the level of “Slaves really liked slavery” or “The Japanese had really good reasons to bomb Pearl Harbor” or “It was the Poles that attacked the Germans to start World War II.” Millions of people saw the reality, which was regime change ordered and executed by the Kremlin, using military force, in Ukraine’s Crimea and Donbas regions. I am one of the eyewitnesses.

• Witkoff’s says he had “very, very positive conversations” on solving the territory issue. This is absurd. Neither side has moved a millimeter in ten, count them, ten years, to end that territorial dispute. This is already a territorial dispute like Israel, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians. Kyiv and Moscow have been crystal clear that their priority isn’t a ceasefire, it’s blowing up stuff in each other’s countries with long-range strikes.

At the most generously optimistic definition of the term, it might be factual to say Witkoff broached the subject of territory and now he is formally aware that the Ukrainian and Russian positions are diametrically opposed and have been so for a decade.

By that definition, picking up a football and telling Lawrence Taylor (image) you will now run past him carrying that football would also be a “very, very positive conversation.”

You pick the side of history you are on, but you don’t get to revise it later

This week saw a pair of pretty awful developments in the area of war crimes.

On Tuesday, Putin issued an order that all Ukrainians without Russian citizenship living in occupied territories – according to Witkoff and Russia, now part of the Russian Federation – have until Sept. 10 to “regulate their legal status.”

This means get a Russian passport or else.

“Citizens of Ukraine who are in the Russian Federation and do not have legal grounds for staying (residing) in the Russian Federation are obliged to leave the Russian Federation.”

This is forced resettlement, a war crime.

Once the Ukrainians living in occupied territories are forced to become Russian citizens – this is where they grew up, went to school, own property, work, run businesses, have buried relatives – then, the taxes they pay will go toward supporting the Russian military, and the military-aged men will be obliged to go fight against the country they were born in – Ukraine.

Forcing people to fight against their own country is, likewise, a war crime.

As we can see, because he says so, Witkoff, and so, the US government, are fully on board with this.

The official American position is that Ukrainian territories invaded by Russia are now legitimately Russian territory, and the people living there are legitimate chattel of the Russian state.

If senior Russian officials were ever prosecuted for committing these war crimes, then at minimum, I would say Witkoff and Trump could be prosecuted for aiding and abetting them. Logically it follows, and as the holder of Juris Doctor degree, Witkoff should recognize that. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.

Second, this week, the US State Department and so Marco Rubio’s personal sandbox, announced that due to a need to reduce the cost of government, the US was stopping funding, and delivery of intelligence data, to NGOs tracking somewhere between 10-60,000 Ukrainian children that have been effectively abducted by Russia and now are being brought up as Russians.

The parent organization for the tracking is my alma mater, Yale. A big fear is that without US funding, the data base is inaccessible, or far less accessible, and that data will become outdated or disappear. This would lead to fewer kidnapped children returned to Ukraine.

By and large, this was orphans and children separated from caregivers in territories Russia invaded. These are children highly susceptible to education and the views of adults; inside the Russian educational system, they will be educated to love Russia and hate Ukraine. That’s another war crime.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the allegation of missing data is false and that the US government “knows fully that the data exists and it’s not been deleted and it’s not missing.”

That leaves US taxpayers with the choice of believing Ms. Bruce, or not. I would point out she is a US government official picked by the White House to support Trump administration policies. Just like Witkoff.

I have swiped a CNN photo of Ukrainian children in the Crimean city Simferopol in a patriotic Russian parade for a graphic illustration of which side of the moral fence the US government has picked.

Blam Blam Blam – This doesn’t look like a ceasefire to me…

Both sides have been energetically hurling long-range strikes at each other, I think in part to emphasize to the Americans that it’s the people that are actually shooting, not dudes wearing suits in DC, that get to decide whether there’s a ceasefire or not.

The Russians this week seem to have shifted tactics somewhat and turned Shahed drones loose on cities that don’t have the best air defenses, with the objectives of maximizing civilian casualties and destroyed civilian homes and businesses.

The area around Odesa port – This is Isaac Babel/Ilf and Petrov territory – got hammered yesterday.

The burning buildings are depressing, so this is sufficient pretext for an image of Ostap Bender (Archil Gomiashvili) and a chair. Extra points if you guess how many chairs there are total.

As for the Ukrainians, I have been struck by how little interest the Western media has had in the Ukrainian side of that equation. Below is a link to a run-down of the last ten days or so, but short version, two days ago Ukrainian drones torched a major oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai, as I write this it’s still burning.

Earlier in the week Ukrainian long-range missiles – homemade, no need to ask permission from the Americans – whacked Engels-2 base by Saratov. Epic explosion of stored missiles. It was one of the most effective strategic strikes of the entire war. Later in the week, Russian civilian media reported that members of a Russian bomber crew that had been launching missiles at Ukraine were killed in the strike.

I point this out because in many Western media, retaliation like that is exactly what puts the backbone into the national will to resist. Westerners unaware that the Ukrainians are retaliating against Russia, will misjudge the Ukrainian will to fight.

I have done stock images of a Tu-95 too often and death portraits of the Russian aircrew is too macabre, so attached is a Maxar image of the Engels-2 missile storage site, pre-strike.

We like invading Russia, let’s do it again! – Kursk incursion over, Belgorod incursion begins

In the early part of the week, reports started coming in that some force of some kind had crossed the Russia-Ukraine frontier into Russia’s Belgorod region, and that it was bigger than a patrol, and that there was shooting.

Over the next three days, the Russians announced several times that the Ukrainian sneaky-deeky infantry guys had been wiped out, and there definitely weren’t any Kyiv troops holding anything, only to have the fighting flare up again and for local authorities to announce forced evacuations of civilians.

What appears to have happened is that elements of Ukraine’s 225th Assault infantry regiment, supported by elements of 17th Mech (this was a former high-performance tank unit) Brigade had pushed about 1-2 kilometers (.6-1.2 miles) into the Russian Federation and captured a tiny village called Popovka and pushed into the outskirts of a somewhat larger village called Demidovka.

The 225th is one of those units with a strong leadership that has grown over time and become a pretty respected fighting outfit.

They were in the Kursk salient retreat so, obviously, evacuating from there didn’t completely render them combat-incapable about two weeks later.

Confirmed – because they say so themselves – is the presence of elements of 414th Unmanned Aircraft Brigade a/k/a “Ptakhi Madyara.”

This is one of the most effective tactical drone strike units in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (ZSU), meaning, in the world – and I state that with confidence. They MAKE their own fiber-optic drones.

Unconfirmed, but based on some sources I am seeing, highly likely, is the presence of elements of 33rd Mechanized Brigade. These guys are pretty seasoned, they fought a lot in the Kurakhove sector and also did time in the Kursk sector.

As to why they did it, clearly, one of the Ukrainian objectives was simply the efficient destruction of Russian men and materiel.

About 5 kilometers (3 miles) to the south, in mixed farmland-wooded territory, some Ukrainian unit or units walked across the international border and kicked off firefights near a village called Grafovka, a place called the Kachanov Yar, a village called Lipsy, and another village called Priles’e. Overall it looks like a border incursion across a 12-15 (7.5-9 miles) kilometer front about 1-3 kilometers (.6-1.9 miles) deep into Russian territory.

I read on the internet the Russian units in the vicinity are elements of the 237th Tank Regiment, 3rd Motor Rifle Division.

I’ve also seen reports of Russian border troops/FSB in the area. What I haven’t seen is credible reports the Russians have kicked the Ukrainians out, meaning, maybe the Ukrainian plan is a variation on the old Longstreet approach (dig up the review yourself) – operationally you want to be on the offensive so you can set up tactical battles you fight defensively.

This incursion raid is not a war-changer, but it is significant, as it shows Ukrainian willingness and capacity to take the initiative in the immediate wake of the Kursk withdrawal/defeat, and also, I suspect, a fair template of how we might expect to see the Ukrainians attack in the future.

Anyone thinking about “peacekeepers” deployed in Ukraine, would need to consider how those peacekeepers might prevent the Ukrainians from doing what they just did in Belgorod region, across a front running about 1,600 kilometers (994 miles). That’s just scale. Now think about the picture of the drone guide wires, and then ask yourself, what armies are there out there that are ready for a war like that?

Yeah, sure, if the US stops helping Ukraine, it’s fat lady

Many of you will have noted an important feature of US rhetoric on Ukraine is that Ukraine cannot stand against Russia without US support. I mean, Trump yelled exactly that at Zelensky during their infamous White House meeting.

This week some more detailed information came out, courtesy of the Ukrainian government, on the flip side of that, to wit, data on on how independent the Ukrainian defense industry actually is. I think the stats speak for themselves.

- In 2024, Ukrainian defense manufacturing increased by a factor of six.

- The value of that manufacturing was $10 billion (calculated in ridiculously undervalued UAH, my guess is the purchasing power equivalent compared to NATO state defense outlays was three to ten times that).

- The plan for 2025 is that domestic defense production will triple, and on paper reach $30-35 billion (!). That’s not taking purchasing power parity into account.

- Ukrainian production of mortar rounds (albeit, there have been serious quality issues) meets all demand by the military, import is helpful but not critical.

- Ukraine produced 96.2% of all drones used by the AFU.

- Ukraine is effectively autonomous in the production of ground robotic systems and long-range strike unmanned aerial vehicles, although, as with mortar rounds, import is helpful.

- The government plan is to produce 30,000 long-range drones and 3,000 cruise missiles. Yes, I know, that’s just what they say. However, last year the Ukrainian state set the objective of manufacturing 1.2 million drones. This is confirmed by multiple sources: They exceeded it.

Besides the simple “OK, I didn’t know that” aspect of these factoids, there is the bit about closed information ecosystems. This news was all over the Ukrainian media. The Ukrainian government has a pretty good record of telling the truth, broad-sweep, on war planning.

To Ukrainians, it doesn’t look like they are losing. People who have never set foot in Ukraine, who tell them they are losing, just seem stupid to Ukrainians. I think it’s appropriate here to supply an image of the US Vice President JD Vance telling Zelensky that Ukraine will lose the war.

Mine awareness and government accountability

In one of those half-empty/half-full developments, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry this week announced plans to order a whole bunch of mortar rounds, in part, from mortar round manufacturers that last year put tens of thousands of bad bombs into the hands of troops.

The biggest problems were bad fuses and propellant that burned improperly.

We know that the orders were placed, because the defense contracting orders are open to the public and a public activist group called the Public Anti-Corruption Council, followed by Ukrainian media, could read the names of the manufacturers (actually there is one very big one), the amount of money involved, and the track record of their product in the past.

So now that that is in the Ukrainian public information space, fingers are being pointed, and if you want to just ask, any Ukrainian mortarman will tell you, sure we have enough mortar bombs these days. But if it’s a serious mission and really important that the target gets hammered, better to use imported ammo if you have it.

There is, of course, the angle that this is not what a country at war needs to have happening – the ammo needs to be reliable.

There is also of course the angle this is exactly what a country at war needs to have happening. There is an independent media doing its job, and a government obliged to make enough information about state contracting and spending public so that problems that would get troops killed get out in the open and discussed, rather than swept under the rug and ignored.

Honestly, I don’t know when the problem will be fixed. But what is absolutely clear, there no way it can be ignored. Ukrainian mortar bomb image.

Yep…This definitely will not help the Lockheed Martin bottom line

Apropos of media and defense contracting, many of you will have noted, that as a result of the American cut-off of intelligence data to Ukraine for a week, which disabled or made less effective several major US weapons systems operated by the Ukrainian military, pretty much everyone writing in the world defense media has put out a news article about how the flagship of US defense exports – the 5th Generation F-35 fighter jet – is an unsafe weapon even in US “ally” hands because, first the US is an unreliable ally, and second the F-35 has a built in “kill switch.”

The articles came so thick and fast, that later in the week, the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, was forced to put out a statement saying, no there’s not a kill switch, Lockheed Martin products are reliable and well-made, please buy more.

Meanwhile, the critics pointed out kill switch or no kill switch, a complicated flying computer/sensor platform like the F-35 would become useless pretty fast if the US exported the plane to you and then later, for whatever reason, cut off access to intelligence data updates and spare parts.

All of which, honestly, wouldn’t have been fodder for this review except for this, on Friday, Germany’s Stern magazine reported what I am positive a German government source provided voluntarily: actually if you buy F-35s from Lockheed Martin there are secret contract clauses including, and I quote: “The US government reserves the right, in the event of unusual and compelling circumstances, if the national interest of the USA so requires, to terminate or suspend the provision of services in whole or in part at any time.”

The Stern article goes on to point out, with textbook German corporate logic, that the greedy Americans won’t even be obliged to compensate someone buying an F-35 for loss of service, per the terms of the contract, the customer just has to suck it up.

This is another excellent example of an independent media informing the public – in this case in Germany – of defense deal details that might profit a manufacturer while harming the national interest.

I can only close this section by noting that the US Defense Department this week announced it was moving forward with a giant new fighter production project called the F-47, and even though the president was there and they had a press conference, no US official said a single word, about how much it would cost. Look it up, there’s nothing. Image of Lockheed Martin share prices dropping off a cliff. This was the market reaction to Boeing getting the F-47.

The “State of the Russo-Ukrainian Peace Process” for the week – Freshly Updated

As always, the point here is to avoid wasting time trying to make sense of all the statements by all the players that are, by and large, not calculated to inform, but just to try and make us, the public, think a certain way. The idea is to take a snap shot of what their actual objectives are at the moment.

- Ukraine: Play for time, pretend the US peace initiative will work. Spend lots of time arguing about the terms of the first limited ceasefire. Be really, really picky about the “off-limits target” list. Negotiate so that if ever something is signed, ceasefire violation works to Ukraine’s interest. Fight an attrition war. Demand things from the US, particularly air defense. Not that they’ll send it, but to put them in a difficult situation. Message to the Ukrainian electorate that the Americans bring little to the table. Laugh at the idea that the UN might field peacekeepers.

- Europe: Play for time, gear up national defenses and Ukraine assistance. Try and get military manufacturing going without angering all the national industries. Prepare to deploy peacekeepers to Ukraine, but not seriously. Britain and France are talking peacekeepers. Italy is talking no peacekeepers. Embarrassingly, Whitehall seemed to feel it was needed to state the SAS is ready to deploy to Ukraine as peacekeepers. This is silly. See the section on Belgorod above as to why. However, if the topic is peacekeeping units that are fun to discuss but would be useless, I vote Polish winged hussars, the Coldstream Guards in full parade fig, or squadrons of French cuirassiers. Since I’ve done cuirassiers and hussars previously, I offer you well-scrubbed redcoats, with Queen Elizabeth for good measure.

- Russia: Play for time, but exploit the US obsession with a peace deal where possible. Kill Ukrainians and browbeat Ukraine into surrender. Negotiate a ceasefire for terms suiting Russia. No concessions on anything. Insult the Americans where possible.

- US: Get a ceasefire as fast as possible. Terms unimportant. Throw Ukraine under the bus because who cares about Ukraine. Making President Trump look good and effective is a top priority. Insult Ukraine because your electorate likes that. In Saudi Arabia, conduct “talks” with Russian negotiators in one room and Ukrainian negotiators in another room, and US diplomats running between the rooms. Pretend “deals” giving US big business “control” of select Ukrainian industry advances the peace process. Last week, it was Ukrainian rare earths mining. This week, it’s Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Reprinted from Kyiv Post’s Special Military Correspondent Stefan Korshak’s blog. You can read his blog here.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.