March 24, 2025 (EIRNS)—Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff gave an interview to “Fox News Sunday” today about the administration’s stance on various crisis spots around the world. Witkoff started off by expressing his optimism over the talks with Russia, and that “real progress” would come from the talks in Riyadh. Before long, anchor Shannon Bream began pressing him on the usual media narratives about Putin and Russia. Asked whether he thinks Putin is a dictator who oppresses and murders his opponents, Witkoff responded: “I’ve never ever seen a situation where there isn’t two sides to a story. It’s just never as black and white as people want to portray. So there are grievances on both sides, but our job, again, I stress, at the direction of the President … is to narrow the issues, bring the parties together, and stop the killing.”
Bream then brought up the holy grail of today’s Ukraine conflict, asking Witkoff if he thought Putin will invade more countries in Europe if not stopped in Ukraine. Witkoff said: “I just don’t see that he wants to take all of Europe. … You have countries that armed there. And I take him at his word there…. But it sort of doesn’t matter, that’s an academic issue. The real issue here, set forth by President Trump … the agenda is, stop the killing.” Witkoff also noted that it is Russia’s “view” that the Eastern Ukraine areas of Donbass are Russian-speaking, and their citizens voted to rejoin Russia. This is just “level-setting the facts” of the situation, he said.
