Witkoff Says Russia Virtually Surrendered to U.S. in Aug. 15th Summit

17 August 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Steve Witkoff, who was one of the six persons in the room when Trump met Putin at the Summit in Alaska, told Jake Tapper, on CNN’s Sunday “State of the Nation” show — and repeated it there several times — that Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively reversed his longstanding No-Ukraine-in-NATO position. Witkoff said that Putin said that Putin had quit his emphatic position, ever since Putin had started as Russia’s leader on 1 January 2000, that under no circumstances could or would Russia ever agree to Ukraine ever becoming a member of NATO and thus subject to the NATO treaty’s Article 5 protection by the United States Government: that the U.S. would be responsible for protecting Ukraine in the event that Ukraine is attacked. Putin had been saying that he will always reject that, but Witkoff has now said that Putin, in effect, ended that no-Ukraine-in-NATO position, on Friday, August 15th.

This, which Witkoff claims that Putin agreed to, would be as-if — to reverse the matter — Russia had obtained the U.S. President’s acceptance that Russia would protect Mexico or Canada if the U.S. attacked one of those countries, both of which countries likewise (just as Ukraine borders Russia) border on America. That would mean Russia would be allowed by the U.S. to place Russia’s forces, including its nuclear forces, on and near America’s border.

But, according to Witkoff, Russia has agreed to America becoming Ukraine’s protector.

Here is one of the several times that Witkoff stated this on that news-program:

“Witkoff on what Trump and Putin said to each other in meeting”

8:16

we got to an agreement

8:17

that the United States

8:20

and other

8:20

and other European nations

8:22

could effectively,

8:24

offer

8:25

Article Five-like language

8:28

to, cover a security guarantee.

8:31

So Putin has said

8:33

that a red flag

8:34

is NATO admission. Right.

8:35

And so what we were discussing

8:37

was assuming that that held

8:40

assuming that,

8:42

the Ukrainians

8:43

could agree to that

8:44

and could live with that

8:45

and everything is

8:46

going to be in,

8:48

is going to be about

8:49

what the Ukrainians,

8:51

can live with.

8:52

But assuming they could,

8:53

we were able to win

8:55

the following concession

8:56

that the United States

8:58

could offer

8:58

Article Five-like protection,

9:01

which would

9:02

which is the

9:03

if which is one of

9:04

the real reasons why

9:05

Ukraine wants to be in, NATO.

9:07

We sort of were able to bypass

9:09

that and,

9:11

and get an agreement

9:13

that the,

9:13

that the United States

9:14

could offer Article

9:15

Five protection,

9:16

which was the first time

9:17

we had ever heard,

9:18

the Russians agree to that.

9:19

During the negotiations between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy made clear to Khrushchev that if Soviet missiles were about to be positioned in Cuba — which doeesn’t even border the U.S. — then the U.S. would invade and take over Cuba so as to prevent that ever to happen. If Putin, in the Ukraine matter, does, as Witkoff alleges, accept even more danger to the Russian people than a rejection by Khruschev in 1962 of Kennedy’s demand would have been presenting to the American people, then what will the Russian people think of that?

What would the American people have thought of Kennedy if he had allowed the Soviet Union to become the protector of Cuba — or of Mexico, or of Canada?

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.