A few weeks ago, Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff referred to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin as a humanitarian, an expression of praise that stands out as one of the most nauseating public statements made by any member of Trump’s circle in either of his two terms in office.
A torrent of offensive remarks has spilled forth from Trump himself, JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, and a number of other Trump imitators, but Witkoff’s abject flattery of Putin is noteworthy for its ignorance and absurdity. His full statement, made in person to Putin, was delivered in full sycophantic bloom in St. Petersburg, following the release of Stephen Hubbard, an American hostage who had for many years been imprisoned in Russia without cause: “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again.”
In calling Putin a humanitarian, Mr. Witkoff was apparently able to blind himself to the hard facts about the Russian president, but by citing just a few recent highlights here, I can provide a true record of Putin’s character. Since he invaded Ukraine for the second time in February 2022, total civilian casualties in Ukraine number at least 50,000, including 17,000 civilians killed by drone and missile strikes ordered by Putin to target residential neighborhoods, hospitals, and schools. In the town of Bucha, in March 2022, Putin’s invading soldiers committed hundreds of rapes, executions, and acts of torture against the civilian population. Photos showed victims with their hands bound behind their backs and shot at close range. In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, for war crimes related to the unlawful deportation and transfer of over 20,000 Ukrainian children, taken from their homes, separated from their parents, and resettled in Russia. And in February of 2024, anti-corruption activist and opposition leader Alexei Navalny was murdered in a Siberian prison with the nerve toxin epibatidine. Nothing of importance in Russia happens without Putin’s direction and approval, so it is legitimate to implicate him in all of these recent horrors.
Steve Witkoff earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a law degree from Hofstra University, where presumably he learned something about world politics and the law, but calling Putin a humanitarian would suggest he didn’t learn anything at all. We might ask him if he is familiar with other authoritarian murderers, like Idi Amin in Uganda or Pol Pot in Cambodia, and if he might be inclined to refer to them as humanitarians as well. And there is Joseph Stalin, who ordered the execution of millions of his political opponents during the 1930s and 1940s, including thousands of intellectuals and members of the Polish police and military forces, who in 1943 were found buried in the Russian forest of Katyn, many of them shot in the back of the head, in sickening similarity to Putin’s victims in Bucha. Humanitarian?
We would think that Mr. Witkoff, as an educated man, would have been exposed by now to the true meaning of the word “humanitarian,” and that he might have learned its actual definition: a person who works to improve people’s lives, reduce suffering, and promote human welfare and dignity. By calling Putin a humanitarian, Witkoff seems to be suggesting that, by virtue of his high character and admirable achievements, Putin belongs in the same category as people like Elie Wiesel, Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela, all of whom were winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, one traditional way that the true humanitarians among us have been recognized and honored. To associate Vladimir Putin with them seems perverse.
The rationale for Donald Trump’s predictable and reliable practice of siding with Putin has been debated for many years. Does he share an ideological affinity for Putin’s strongman tactics and authoritarian persona? Does he hope that his personal business and financial interests will benefit from a Russian alliance? Does the Russian government have kompromat on Trump that he is afraid Putin will make public?
We may never know the answers to these questions. But Steve Witkoff’s motivations are more transparent, and we can easily determine his intention in St. Petersburg. He was simply playing, once again, the classic children’s game that has become such a dominant feature of the Trump administration and of today’s Republican Party: “Follow the Leader.”
Greg Tuleja lives in Southampton.