A quiet diplomatic gesture carries more weight than its words suggest. When the American envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg and called him a humanitarian, he set that flattery against the grinding question of who gets to keep the ground Russia has taken in Ukraine. Far from the negotiating table, in a Kharkiv park, a one-year-old and an 11-year-old were among six people killed by a drone, a reminder that the abstractions of peace are paid for in small bodies. The commentator's concern is less about any single phrase than about whether a diplomacy that speaks warm
Witkoff's Flattery of Putin Hides a Harder Truth: Ukraine's Children Are Still Taking Cover and Dying
Six people, including a one-year-old girl and an 11-year-old, were killed in a drone strike on a park near Kharkiv, with hundreds of thousands killed in the wider invasion.
Steve Witkoff’s flattery of the Russian leader could be just the start of a men…
Mark
What happened here?
Mimi
‘You are a humanitarian also, sir’: the US feeds Putin with lies as Ukraine’s children take cover and die | Andrew Roth.
Mark
Give me the shape of it.
Mimi
Steve Witkoff’s flattery of the Russian leader could be just the start of a mendacious stratagem from a US president who says Moscow ‘has been fine on Ukraine’ They say the first casualty of war is t…
Mark
What should we watch for?
Mimi
Follow this story as developments unfold across multiple outlets.
O Pulso
- An American envoy praised Vladimir Putin as a humanitarian while sitting down to close a deal over Russian territorial gains in Ukraine.
- Six civilians, including a one-year-old and an 11-year-old, died in a drone strike on a Kharkiv park, and the White House has barely acknowledged them.
- Washington is pressing Kyiv toward a swift settlement, raising fears that the peace push amounts to a capitulation dressed up as negotiation.
- With US midterms set for 3 November, the pace and terms of the push will be judged for their political effect as much as their diplomatic merit.
- The gap between the rhetoric of peace and the reality of ongoing strikes on civilians is widening, and the outcome remains unsettled.
A quiet diplomatic gesture carries more weight than its words suggest. When the American envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg and called him a humanitarian, he set that flattery against the grinding question of who gets to keep the ground Russia has taken in Ukraine. Far from the negotiating table, in a Kharkiv park, a one-year-old and an 11-year-old were among six people killed by a drone, a reminder that the abstractions of peace are paid for in small bodies. The commentator's concern is less about any single phrase than about whether a diplomacy that speaks warmly to the aggressor and pressures the victim can still be called honest.
Steve Witkoff, the American envoy, sat down with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg this week in an effort to close a deal over the territory Russia has seized in Ukraine. Before the talks had even begun in earnest, he described the Russian leader as a humanitarian. For the columnist Andrew Roth, the remark was more than diplomatic courtesy. It was a small falsehood placed at the start of a larger strategy, one that already included a president who has said Moscow has been fine on Ukraine.
While those words were spoken in a gilded room, the cost of the war arrived elsewhere. In Kharkiv, a drone strike on a park killed six people, among them a one-year-old girl and an 11-year-old child. The White House has said little about them. Across the wider invasion, hundreds of thousands have died, and the people of Ukraine are being asked to accept terms that their own children's graves seem to argue against.
The push for a quick Ukrainian capitulation now unfolds under the shadow of the US midterm elections on 3 November. How the administration handles the deal, and how honestly it describes it, will shape not only the fate of any agreement but the public's trust in what American diplomacy claims to be doing.
A story is developing around ‘You are a humanitarian also, sir’: the US feeds Putin with lies as Ukraine’s children take cover and die | Andrew Roth. Steve Witkoff’s flattery of the Russian leader could be just the start of a mendacious stratagem from a US president who says Moscow ‘has been fine on Ukraine’ They say the first casualty of war is truth. For the Trump administration, the…
They say the first casualty of war is truth. For the Trump administration, the road to peace with Russia now encompasses some extraordinary lies. Steve Witkoff delivered one as he sat down with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Wednesday,…
This account is still unfolding. More context will surface as other outlets pick up the thread and add their own reporting.
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Leia o original em The Guardian ↗
Politics & Governance