TRUMP’S CRONY DIPLOMACY

The most shocking feature of US President Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan for Ukraine is not its explicit and extreme bias toward Russia, exemplified by the recognition of Russian sovereignty over occupied (and even unoccupied) Ukrainian territory and the diktat to downsize Ukraine’s military radically.

- Federico Fubini

Rather, it is that the plan was devised by three operatives - two American, one Russian - whose experience lies in business, not diplomacy, and whose main qualification appears to be their close personal and financial connections to their respective countries’ leaders.

On the US side, the plan’s main author was special envoy Steve Witkoff — a billionaire real-estate developer, cryptocurrency mogul, and longtime Trump crony, who has emerged as the president's go-to adviser on sensitive global issues. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was reportedly also involved in the plan's creation, albeit to alesser extent. Despite lacking any formal government authority, Kushner has regularly been enlisted by Trump to work on matters of war and peace.

Russia’s main representative, Kirill Dmitriev, similarly lacks any official foreign-policy authority or diplomatic credentials, but is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Dmitriev is not your typical Putin crony. The head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, he got his start not in the KGB, but as a 14-year-old exchange student in the United States during the hopeful years of Mikhail Gorbachev. He went on to study at Stanford and Harvard, graduating to positions at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. But his most important “qualification” is not listed on his résumé: his marriage to television presenter Natalia Popova, a close friend and business partner of Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova.