Insider Betrayal: Trump Admin Leakers Plot to Derail Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks

Here at RedState, we've been reporting on the slow progress of the Russia/Ukraine peace talks. The most recent developments have been encouraging; maybe cautiously so, but encouraging nonetheless. The fighting goes on, for now, but there may finally be light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

Even so, from Washington, D.C., there has been a steady drip, drip, drip of leaks of discussions around this process, and if someone was deliberately trying to sabotage these peace talks, it's hard to see what they might do differently.

First, a leaked phone call transcript:

Extremely rare leak of a phone call transcript between Putin's senior foreign policy-adviser and Steve Witkoff via Bloomberg. Witkoff advises Putin's aid on how to pitch Trump on backing a Gaza-style peace plan for Ukraine https://t.co/86LacypzYV pic.twitter.com/hHxKGg1a0H
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) November 25, 2025

Note that Steve Witkoff is the Trump administration's special envoy for the Middle East and for peace negotiations. It's not that much of a much, but the very fact that this call between key individuals involved with these negotiations is troubling. In negotiations like this, all manner of things may be discussed, and President Trump's envoy talking to his Russian counterpart about how best to approach his boss isn't unreasonable. So why leak this? And, we should remember, it's not impossible that the leaks came from the Russian side, although it's hard to imagine what anyone on that side could have hoped to gain from this.

I don't think that this is an understatement.

I can’t tell you how massive a betrayal this is - not by Witkoff, but by the leaker. Ames/Hanssen/Pollard tier. https://t.co/Doho7Cqy1i
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) November 26, 2025

The negotiations, remember, have been bouncing back and forth. The first deal, supposedly Russian-endorsed, was unacceptable to both Ukraine and its EU neighbors, and anyone with enough brains to pound sand could have told us Ukraine would reject this out of hand.

But now, in the last few days, there appears to have been a breakthrough or two. It's a tad early to get too happy, but at least there appears to be movement.

Rubio 'Very Optimistic' a Peace Deal Can Be Reached After Meeting With Ukrainian Officials in Geneva

So why now? And to what end? Would swamp creatures still embedded within the Executive branch be so anxious to make the Trump administration look bad that they would actually leak information that could damage talks to end the worst European war since 1945?

Conversations like this happen all the time at this level. These people are engaged in negotiating a peace deal between two countries that have a long and unpleasant history. The larger and stronger country, just to make things more complicated, is under the dictatorship of a man who has amassed more personal power than anyone since Joe Stalin, and his original goal was almost certainly to seize all of Ukraine, not just the Russian-speaking portions of it. The United States is trying to broker a deal, and to do that, the chief negotiators - and we should remember that Witkoff was appointed legally by the President of the United States to carry out these negotiations - have to talk to each other. They have to talk about alternatives, and they have to understand not only the intentions but the ambitions and personalities of the leaders on both sides.

What this reveals is that someone, somewhere, is for some reason trying to throw a wrench in the works. Is it someone on the American side, trying to preclude President Trump from what will be a major win if his administration can broker a cease-fire? Or is it someone on the Russian side who, for some reason, wants to keep the killing going? My money's on the former. We have already seen that the Deep State will go to great lengths to damage anything and anyone associated with President Trump.

It's not just leakers, either, which is another thing that makes me think this leak came from the American side. We should note that the Secretary of State, in his personal X account, deplored a "fake news" story on these negotiations put out by none other than NBC News.

This story is just the latest example of a long-running series of 100% fake news reports claiming a rift inside the Trump administration over how to end the war in Ukraine.

These people don’t just get things wrong, they literally make things up. https://t.co/C6CqXQW4HG
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 26, 2025

If a peace deal is finalized, if the Russo-Ukrainian War finally does come to an end, at least for a while, it will be in large part due to the work put in by the Trump administration. Now it's becoming abundantly clear that, when this happens, it will be despite, not because of, the best efforts of the Deep State.

Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt political machinations like these attempts to derail the Russia/Ukraine peace talks.

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