What happens when a US envoy sits down with Vladimir Putin for hours?
According to Steven Witkoff, you get a “solution-based” conversation—one that challenges long-standing perceptions of the Russian leader.
“I liked him. I thought he was straight up with me,” Witkoff told Tucker Carlson in a glowing review of his Moscow visit.
Far from the villain often painted by the West, Putin, he claimed, is a “great leader” looking for a way to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Meeting Wasn’t Just About Geopolitics
Witkoff shared a strikingly personal anecdote—Putin, he said, had prayed for Trump after last year’s assassination attempt.
He even commissioned a portrait of the former president as a gift.
Beyond the pleasantries, Witkoff’s message to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was blunt: “Now is the best time for him to get a deal done.”
He warned that Ukraine was up against a nuclear power and risked being “ground down.”
The interview, aired on Carlson’s podcast, underscored the dramatic shift in US-Russia relations under Trump’s second term.
But whether this new tone leads to real diplomacy—or just headlines—remains to be seen.
