Trump faces fresh questions over ties to 'humanitarian' Putin

Next, you are a humanitarian sir. This is how Steve Witkoff praised the wanted war criminal Vladimir Putin, Russia's authoritarian president, the man who started the war on Ukraine and who has kept up a cruel bombardment of residential and energy infrastructure for the past four and a half years. So were Witkoff's words just lip service? He succeeded in getting an American prisoner freed by Putin so maybe there was some method in what seems like madness but it's worth Noting this is Witkoff's 8th documented visit to Putin, he's been to Kyiv only once, a special envoy. The Putin-Witkoff meeting lasted 3 hours, there was no comment afterwards where Putin thanked Trump and Witkoff for their efforts to end the war, remember this is the war Putin himself started, he can stop it right now. Well Putin this Wednesday said that he's ready to resume trilateral peace talks, that would be with Trump and Xi Jinping, US and China, about Ukraine, but without Ukraine nor with you are present in Gulliver Crag, our Ukraine correspondent in Kharkiv. Gulliver, very good interview. What have people in Kharkiv been saying about the latest diplomatic developments? Well, people are absolutely appalled, of course, to hear Steve Witkoff again flattering Vladimir Putin, calling him a humanitarian. Just about an hour's drive or a bit less southwest of here, funerals were held in the village where a mother and her one-year-old child were killed child in its pram those photos you've seen and another woman who was killed in that village this is the person that Steve Witkoff is calling a humanitarian in terms of what people in Kharkiv have been saying about the american pivot towards russia if you want to call it that which i think is probably appropriate. They're calling it a betrayal. That's the word that most people I spoke to used. There's not panic about it, though, it seems. Most people seem to think that things are going to be very, very difficult. But some people say, well, if we manage to survive in 2022, this city, which really bore the brunt of the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022, people were expecting it to fall very very quickly it did not it resisted and it came back to life in a way having been largely deserted that people think that they can survive anything in a way one person said we've had so many moments when we thought that this is a betrayal that now they've really dumped us that now we're really in trouble and yet we've managed to weather it so there's that feeling that somehow they will get through though people aren't exactly clear how that can happen without US support. A couple of people I spoke to mentioned the midterms, of course, hoping that either maybe all of this, what's going on now, is something of an act because Donald Trump thinks that blaming Zelensky for things is going to help him somehow in the midterms, and others simply thinking that if the Republican Party loses the midterms sufficiently badly, then American politics will have to change. But people are, of course, extremely worried and extremely angry. To return just briefly to that humanitarian comment by Steve Witkoff. Oleksandra Matviichuk, the Nobel Peace Prize winning Ukrainian human rights advocate, she pointed out that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as envoys are very much not doing their humanitarian work, even on potential local solutions to specific humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, such as that in the occupied town of Oleshky in Kherson region. It's the Pope who's been on the phone to Vladimir Putin trying to get him to agree to a ceasefire there, not the US envoys. Indeed, it is continually obvious that Witkoff and Kushner are constantly peddling Putin's narrative throughout this. And it's understandable that Ukrainian folk, where you are, feel as basically afraid as they do. Afraid, perhaps that's too strong because they seem to be very resilient. And you're observing that day to day. But I imagine that people are deep down afraid. And you say there's no panic, but it's that there isn't any panic? I don't know if Ukrainians are sort of now geared to panic. If it's possible for them to panic, they've been through such a lot. But that doesn't mean that they're not afraid. That doesn't mean that they're not very, very worried about what's happening. But the emotion that I most often feel coming from people that I speak to is more anger than sadness or panic. But I was messaging people that I know in Kiev this evening, and they were saying that There is also sadness. There is also fear. But I think there's just this determination that one way or another, things have got to change and Ukraine has got to get through this because they don't see any other solution than to, for the moment, keep on fighting and keep on trying to convince European partners in particular that it's crucial for Europe to carry on supporting Ukraine and to step up if the Americans are stepping down and to just do whatever they can to keep up the fight. Valeriy Chaly, the former Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., had an interesting comment about Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State, who had said that Ukraine wouldn't exist anymore if it wasn't for U.S. support. He was very critical of the Secretary of State making those kinds of remarks, saying that it's a tried and tested rhetorical trick that is absolutely not acceptable at this point. But even if we decide to analyse the words that he used at face value, and what would that exactly mean? Ukraine would not exist anymore. So Ukraine would be occupied by Russia or Ukraine would be governed by some kind of puppet pro-Russian government that Putin would have wanted to put in. And what would have happened next, Valerie Charlier rhetorically asked? Probably Moldova would have been threatened or maybe the Baltic states and then NATO as a whole institution. and that Marco Rubio really should know better to engage in that kind of grandstanding than to engage in that kind of grandstanding because the consequences of Ukraine ceasing to exist, as Marco Rubio blithely suggested could have happened if the Americans hadn't supported it, would have been terrible even for the United States, according to Ukraine's former ambassador, who's a very respected diplomat on the international stage, I believe. Oliver Craig, a Ukraine correspondent, joining us live from Kiev. Thank you, sir, as always, very much for joining us. Do stay safe out there. Thank you very much indeed. Go over there in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine.