President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday defended President Trump’s special envoy against accusations of pro-Kremlin bias, calling him “an intelligent man” who is properly representing the position of his country and leader.
Mr. Putin’s defense of the envoy, Steve Witkoff, came after Bloomberg News published a transcript of a leaked phone call between Mr. Witkoff and a Kremlin foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov. Critics seized on the call to accuse Mr. Witkoff of one-sidedness toward Russia as the Trump administration has pushed a Kremlin-friendly plan to end the war in Ukraine.
The U.S. envoy has met with Mr. Putin several times in Moscow and is scheduled to return next week to continue negotiations over Mr. Trump’s peace proposal.
“Mr. Witkoff is clearly traveling to Moscow on President Trump’s orders to negotiate with us,” Mr. Putin said at a news conference in Kyrgyzstan, where he was making a state visit. Given Mr. Witkoff’s assignment from Mr. Trump, the Russian leader added, “it would probably be surprising if he cursed us with obscenities in his conversations with Ushakov.”
During the peace talks, Mr. Putin added, Russian and American representatives have conducted a dialogue “without cursing or spitting at each other, like intelligent people.”
The U.S. settlement proposal created an outcry last week for its tilt toward Russia and prompted a scramble by Ukrainian and European officials to negotiate changes during talks last weekend in Geneva led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Mr. Putin said on Thursday that a number of the provisions in Mr. Trump’s initial 28-point peace plan were acceptable but that others required substantive discussion.
Among the points that need additional discussion, Mr. Putin said, is one that calls for the “de facto” recognition of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk as Russian territory. The Kremlin, which illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, has made clear that it wants to fully absorb Donetsk and Luhansk, which make up the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.
Mr. Putin reiterated his threat to continue taking Ukrainian territory by force if the peace agreement did not meet his demands. They include a legally binding ban on NATO membership for Ukraine, limits on Kyiv’s military and guarantees for the Russian language and Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
The Russian leader attributed the leak of the call between Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Ushakov, as well as the release of another call, between Mr. Ushakov and Mr. Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, to tensions within the Western establishment over how to handle peace talks with Russia.
Mr. Putin described being surprised by the Trump administration’s about-face when it approved sanctions on two Russian oil giants weeks after reaching what the Russian leader called an understanding during a summit with Mr. Trump in Alaska.
“What’s this about?” Mr. Putin said. “I’m telling you honestly, I didn’t even understand what was going on here.”
Paul Sonne is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of President Vladimir V. Putin’s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on the war against Ukraine.
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