Is Washington Negotiating Russia’s Terms to Ukraine? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

dee takos (0:00)

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes On Geopolitics. I'm here with Jonathan Hackett, Mick Mulroy, Andy Milburn, and myself. Andy's leaving CID, good seeing you.

Mick, congratulations on your daughter getting married.

Jack Murphy (0:16)

Thank you. Slonjun.

dee takos (0:19)

You're welcome. And we got a lot cooking, as usual. We just had uncle Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner head over to Moscow to talk to Putin. And now they are in, currently we're shooting this 11 a.m. on Sunday, Eastern time. They are now in Ukraine talking with Zelensky.

I didn't really see a lot of like the readout of what they really talked about in Russia and stuff like that. I did make a joke on Twitter that they went to get their marching orders from Putin and then are going to Ukraine to like give Zelensky a laundry list of stuff. I did see a little bit of some stuff, a clip of like Witkoff kind of just glazing Putin basically, which was incredible to me, how like we're going to be old and we're going to be thinking about these is really good times. Like bro, you're not leasing a strip ball, brother. This is like people dying every single day in a legal invasion by Russia into Ukraine, into a sovereign country, democratic country. So not exactly like just a feel good thing to be talking about like with such kind of very blase, I'd say.

Where you guys at? What do you think is going to come out of this? Did you get any readout as to what they were talking about? What the, you know, were there any like specifics? Mick, you go ahead, Jon.

Jonathan Hackett (1:44)

On the substance of the meeting, also they discussed US. Marine veteran Robert Gilman, who had been imprisoned in Russia unlawfully for four years because he was teaching in Russia. He was held there as a political prisoner and last month, the US negotiated for his release and in this meeting, just this weekend, the delegation thanked Putin for releasing him. So the question is, what was exchanged? That's not been discussed, I don't think. What was exchanged for that person, that American to return home? So I think that's important for people to pay attention to as well, that these things aren't free. Russia is not releasing people for charity. There's absolutely something that was given in return, and it would be interesting to see what that thing was.

Besides what you already mentioned, Mick, which are all very important, like strategic level things, there was a more tactical issue I noticed when Kushner was getting off the airplane. He was wearing white Nike tennis shoes, jeans and a black t-shirt, and everybody else was in a suit, including Kirill Dmitriev, the presidential envoy, which is the equivalent of Witkoff, but on the Russian side, wearing a full black tailored suit, clearly indicating sartorial decisions are decisions, and people choose to wear what they're wearing to send a message. If you remember when the CEO of Twitter was in Congress testifying, he famously refused to wear a suit even though the dress code is a suit, and refused to dress appropriately. I feel like Kushner is doing something like that in this meeting, where he's intentionally dressing down. Just something interesting that I noticed in the image if you look at it.

Also, Dimitriyev said, so he took a bunch of pictures and released some pictures on his ex account, and he said, welcome to Moscow, peacemakers. That was how it was advertised on the Russian side in Russian, and through TASS media was that these are peacemakers arriving in Russia, which is something very interesting as well.

dee takos (3:35)

I will say this, I hate Kushner as much as the next person does. He wore that when he got off the plane, but in the meeting with Putin, he was suited up.

Jonathan Hackett (3:44)

True. If you've done these kind of flights when you're like, for example, when I was at the couple of embassies, we would get these diplomatic or these distinguished visitors coming in, usually a secretary or somebody higher than that. There's a protocol, there's a dress code, there's very specific ways that you have to appear as soon as you get off the aircraft. For example, one time we were receiving the Secretary of State in a country I was in and the Secretary of Defense as well.

The senior person on my side of the delegation forgot his tie. Because he forgot his tie, all of us had to remove our ties, because we couldn't be dressed above his level. This is carefully orchestrated stuff.

It was not an accident, and it wasn't just because he wanted to be on Casual Friday. There was a choice in how he dressed.