“Why would they want to absorb Ukraine?”: Five examples of Kremlin disinformation spread by Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff

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On the “referendums” in Ukraine’s annexed territories

Witkoff: “Well, first of all, I think the largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions. Donbas, Crimea. You know the names.”

Carlson: “Luhansk.”

Witkoff: “Yeah, Luhansk. And there’s two others. They’re Russian speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.”

Carlson: “In fact, some of those territories are now, from the Russian perspective, part of Russia, correct?”

Witkoff: “That’s correct. But this has always been the issue. And it’s sort of, no one wants to talk about it. That’s the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is there are constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede to with regard to giving up territory. The Russians are de facto in control of these territories. The question is will they be, will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories? Will Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict. Absolutely.”

Witkoff appears thoroughly confused about the number of Ukrainian regions Russia has claimed — mentioning “four,” then “three” (Luhansk and two unnamed others). In reality, there are six: the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, both of which Russia illegally annexed following an unfree, unfair referendum in March 2014, and the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, which Russia illegally annexed following unfree, unfair referendums in September 2022.

Witkoff seems to take at face value the Kremlin’s claims that the results of these Potemkin processes reflect the local populations’ genuine will to join Russia. In reality, the referendums were conducted under military occupation — armed Russian soldiers went door-to-door to collect votes, which Kremlin-run media described as a “security” measure — without independent monitoring, and millions of Ukrainians who fled to other parts of the country or abroad were excluded.

The city of Kherson, which was occupied at the time the “vote” occurred, was later liberated by Ukrainian forces. When it was, residents reported that Russian troops had pressured them to vote, often without ensuring ballot secrecy. In the Zaporizhzhia Region, the capital city and surrounding areas remained outside Russian control, meaning no Russian referendum was held there — yet Moscow nevertheless claims these territories as its own due to the fact that “voting” took place in other parts of the region.

On “Russian-speaking regions” and political allegiances

Witkoff’s claim that these are all Russian-speaking regions is also misleading. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census:

• In Zaporizhzhia, 52.2% identified Ukrainian as their native language; 46.2%, Russian.
  
• In Kherson, 73.2% named Ukrainian as their mother tongue.

Only in Donetsk and Luhansk did the majority of residents name Russian as their native language.

However, speaking Russian does not equate to having pro-Russian political leanings, let alone to having a desire to live under Moscow’s rule. In Ukraine’s 2019 parliamentary elections, the Russia-leaning Opposition Platform — For Life party finished first only in Donetsk and Luhansk. In Kherson, President Zelensky’s Servant of the People party won 49.71%; in Zaporizhzhia, 48.39%. Meanwhile, the Opposition Platform secured just 17.97% and 21.79%, respectively.

Moreover, Russia’s full-scale invasion has drastically worsened Ukrainian public sentiment toward Russia — even many Opposition Platform politicians have shifted to a pro-Ukrainian stance.

For example, party leader Yuriy Boyko called Russian missile strikes acts of terrorism and co-authored a parliamentary appeal urging NATO to accelerate Ukraine’s pursuit of membership.

On the alleged “encirclement” of Ukrainian forces in Kursk

Witkoff: “There are conditions that the Russians will need for an ultimate ceasefire, because an ultimate ceasefire is complicated. There’s Kursk, where Ukrainian troops are surrounded. Fact. And the Russians…”

Carlson: “Kursk is within Russia.”

Witkoff: “Kursk is within Russia. The Russians have taken it back. And they’ve got people trapped there. And [President Trump] doesn’t want to see everybody getting killed. That’s a significant battlefield condition that has to be dealt with. But on top of that, is that acknowledged?”

Witkoff was repeating a bizarre claim made by Donald Trump during a March 14 phone call in which he urged Vladimir Putin to spare the lives of supposedly encircled Ukrainian troops near Kursk. The statement stunned even pro-Kremlin war correspondents, who saw no evidence of an encirclement on the battlefield itself. Kremlin-friendly Russian outlet Lenta.ru ran a piece — titled “Russia Denies Trump’s Claim of Large-Scale Ukrainian Encirclement in Kursk Region” — citing pro-war blogger Vladimir Romanov, who wrote:

“There’s no large encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk Region… No idea why Trump made that up.”

Independent publication Novaya Gazeta Europe also quoted military analyst Yan Matveev, who said:

“If propagandists are on the ground, it means there’s no fighting and the front has moved on. Ukrainian forces are retreating from Sudzha without combat, preserving personnel and equipment.”

Another analyst, Ruslan Leviev, founder of the independent open source intelligence (OSINT) project Conflict Intelligence Team, confirmed that Ukraine was forced to retreat from some positions due to Russian strikes on key logistics and bridges — but this hardly qualified as an encirclement.

On Khrushchev’s “gift” of territories to Ukraine

Witkoff: “There’s a sensibility in Russia that Ukraine is a false country, that they just patch together in this sort of mosaic, these regions. And that’s the root cause, in my opinion, of this war — that Russia regards those five regions as rightfully theirs since World War II. And that’s something that nobody wants to talk about. Well, I say it out loud. How are we going to solve this thing unless we solve the central issue that underpins the conflict?”

Carlson: “Khrushchev kind of just made those part of Ukraine.”

Witkoff: “Correct.”

Carlson: “Yeah, I think Khrushchev was Ukrainian. Amazing.”

Here, Witkoff and Carlson echo — and even outdo — Kremlin propaganda. Putin has repeatedly described Crimea as a “gift” to Ukraine from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev — for instance, in an interview with the Mongolian newspaper Onoodor on Sept. 2, 2024.

But even Russian officials do not claim that Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson were “handed” to Ukraine by Khrushchev. These regions were recognized as being part of Soviet Ukraine in the early 1920s, when Khrushchev was still a student in what is now Donetsk.

Putin has also falsely claimed that Lenin “created” Ukraine, and it’s possible that Witkoff and Carlson are confusing which Soviet leaders did what — further underscoring the shallow understanding of the region by the man tasked with negotiating peace.

In truth, Donbas was part of a Ukrainian state entity proclaimed in 1917 under the Central Rada.

On Russia’s alleged lack of interest in seizing more Ukrainian land

Witkoff: “Why would they want to absorb Ukraine? For what purpose, exactly? They don’t need to absorb Ukraine. That would be like occupying Gaza. Why do the Israelis really want to occupy Gaza for the rest of their lives? They don’t. They want stability there — they don’t want to deal with [it]. But the Russians also have what they want. They’ve gotten — they’ve reclaimed these five regions. They have Crimea, and they’ve gotten what they want. So why do they need more?”

This mirrors one of Russia’s conditions for a ceasefire: a Ukrainian withdrawal from territories claimed by Moscow — even those Russian forces have not fully captured. In practice, Moscow’s position does not represent a serious peace proposal, but a veiled refusal to engage in meaningful negotiations.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, it declared different objectives: the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine — essentially, the disarmament and dismantling of the Ukrainian state. After Russia’s offensive on Kyiv failed and military operations shifted to eastern Ukraine, Moscow’s officials did not abandon these original goals, and they continue to surface regularly in the rhetoric of state propagandists. In May 2024, participants at the forum “What Kind of Victory Do We Need?” — including Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova — once again spoke of the Russian aim of “denazification and demilitarization.”

At his December 2023 press conference, Putin said:

“All of the Black Sea region came under Russian control as a result of the Russo-Turkish wars. What does Ukraine have to do with it? Crimea and the entire Black Sea region have absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine. Odesa is a Russian city, plain and simple. We all know this. Everyone knows it well. But no — they’ve invented all sorts of historical nonsense.

Fine, at some point Vladimir Ilyich Lenin handed it all over to Ukraine during the formation of the Soviet Union. We accepted that after the collapse of the USSR and were ready to live within that framework. But this part — the southeast — is pro-Russian. That mattered to us as well. In every election, they voted for those who ran on pro-Russian platforms, both in domestic and foreign policy. And overall, that situation suited Russia just fine.

But after the 2014 coup, it became clear to us that we would simply not be allowed — by force — to build normal relations with Ukraine. A coup, by the way, that cost five billion dollars, as the Americans themselves said publicly. They weren’t even ashamed to admit it.”

This is the same rhetoric Kremlin officials used in order to justify the annexation of Donbas — and it clearly indicates Moscow’s further territorial ambitions. In that context, Witkoff’s claim that Russia already has “what it wants” is highly questionable.