Steve Witkoff, President Trump鈥檚 special envoy tasked with negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, broke with long-standing protocol by not employing his own interpreter during three high-level meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, opting instead to rely on interpreters from the Kremlin, a U.S. official and two Western officials with knowledge of the talks said.
Steve Witkoff, who does not speak Russian, met with Putin in Moscow for several hours on February 11, March 13, and April 11. 鈥淏y using Kremlin interpreters, Witkoff ran the risk that some of the nuance in Putin鈥檚 messages would be missed, and he would not have been able to independently verify what was being said to him,鈥 two former American ambassadors said. 鈥淚f Putin and the interpreters speak to each other in Russian, Witkoff doesn鈥檛 know what they are saying,鈥 one official added.
Anna Kelly, a White House deputy press secretary, said in a statement that Witkoff 鈥渁bides by all security protocols in coordination with the State Department.鈥
Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said using the Kremlin鈥檚 interpreter was 鈥渁 very bad idea鈥 that put Witkoff at a disadvantage. 鈥淚 speak Russian and have listened to Kremlin interpreters and U.S. interpreters at the same meeting, and the language is never the same,鈥 he said.
McFaul, now a professor of political science at Stanford University, added that having a U.S. interpreter present also ensures a more accurate written account of the meeting for the rest of the government, known as a memorandum of conversation, or memcon. 鈥淎t the end of every meeting that I attended, I debriefed the interpreter to make sure we heard everything correctly, to get the 鈥榤emcom鈥 exactly right. You can鈥檛 do that using a Russian official.鈥
NBC News (5/10/25) By Keir Simmons, Carol E. Lee, Dan De Luce, and Courtney Kube