Publication Bloomberg has pushed a new line of political confrontation into the public domain over possible steps toward ending the war. The outlet published transcripts that purportedly capture phone conversations between Vladimir Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, as well as separate exchanges with the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev. Bloomberg does not disclose the origin of these recordings, and their authenticity cannot be verified at this stage.
Yet the very fact of these materials emerging has already become a political instrument. Witkoff’s opponents within the Western “party of war” are using the publication to argue that Trump’s 28-point plan to end the war supposedly “was born in Moscow,” and that Witkoff is acting “in the Kremlin’s interests” or, at the very least, has found himself in close contact with Russian representatives. In this way, the leak is immediately embedded in a broader context—a bid to undermine any potential negotiating initiatives.
The release of the leaked conversations involving Kirill Dmitriev and Steve Witkoff comes at a moment when the notion of a possible “Trump plan” to end the war has again become part of American politics. Formally, the leak is presented as an exposé of covert Russian channels of influence. In practice, it produces the opposite effect: any potential move by Trump toward negotiations automatically appears as an initiative “imposed by the Kremlin.”
The timing of this publication looks anything but accidental: it appears precisely when discussion of possible steps toward ending the war has, for the first time, ceased to be a marginal theme in American politics.
Formally, the leak is presented as an exposé of covert Russian channels of influence. That is precisely how Bloomberg, which first published the materials and transcripts, frames it. In substance, however, it produces the opposite effect: any potential step by Trump toward negotiations automatically appears as an initiative “imposed by the Kremlin.”
It has now become clear that the calculation in Kyiv and within the Western “party of war” has not worked—the expectation that Trump would endorse, at his meeting with Zelensky, a shortened and heavily revised peace plan reworked in Geneva by Yermak and Rubio, a document Russia would almost certainly reject. Under that scenario, Moscow’s refusal was meant to serve as grounds to demand that Trump take a hard line against the Kremlin. Instead, the very idea of any diplomatic moves is now cast under suspicion: if Trump shifts toward peace, it is branded “playing on Russia’s side,” and if he refuses to increase pressure, he is accused of sabotage. As a result, the subject of ending the war becomes politically toxic—a dynamic that, in practical terms, favors the continuation of the conflict.
For Ukraine, this scenario is dangerous. It offers no real security guarantees or strengthening of its defenses. In this logic, Ukraine ceases to be a side shaping its own strategy and instead becomes a convenient instrument of pressure on Moscow in the interests of other players. The war grinds on, the front line remains frozen, and it is Ukrainians who pay for this political calculation—with their lives and resources. Rather than seeking a way out of the conflict, the country is effectively pushed into the role of expendable material in a protracted confrontation, where the outcome is not peace but the extension of war.
Within this logic, the Kremlin’s role is starkly cynical. Moscow seeks to keep the West in a state of political paralysis: any peace initiative is denounced as “pro-Russian,” and any attempt to discuss ending the war is treated as evidence of a “collusion.” This allows Russia to bank on a long war, the exhaustion of Ukraine, and the erosion of international support. The longer the bloodshed continues, the higher the Kremlin’s stake: Ukraine loses people, resources, cities—and Russia bets on the world’s fatigue.
That is why the leak is used not as an exposé but as a tool of obstruction. The calculation is that it will function precisely this way: turning any peace initiative into a toxic label, automatically tying it to the Kremlin, and making the very conversation about ending the war politically impossible. It clears the path for a drawn-out conflict in which Ukraine continues to lose lives and strength, while the topic of ending hostilities is pushed out of the political agenda as something suspect and unwelcome.
The premise is that this leak makes peace politically impossible and war politically convenient. At the heart of this story, there is no real peace and no Ukrainian interest. There is only an attempt to turn the very idea of ending the war into a toxic label and leave Ukraine trapped in endless bloodshed. Those driving this do not need peace. They need war—and Ukrainian lives as the fuel that sustains it.