Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
A joint statement that crosses both chambers of Congress and both of Washington’s biggest defense panels is a rare thing—and rarer still on the eve of an envoy plane landing in Moscow.
Three of the most senior Democratic voices on American foreign and defense policy issued the statement on Wednesday, November 11, a day before President Donald Trump’s special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were due in Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin.
Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the coordinated statement accusing the two envoys of undermining Ukraine and the NATO alliance.
Their core charge is that the envoys “and Trump are working for Putin, not for the benefit of the people of the United States.”
The specific accusations
The three lawmakers said Kushner and Witkoff have been “parroting Kremlin talking points” on renegotiating European security and on a possible US pullback from Eastern Europe, framing that approach as a direct threat to NATO’s cohesion and to American national security.
They also accused the envoys of pressing Kyiv to hand over sovereign Ukrainian territory, including its “fortress belt, key defensive positions preventing a rapid advance westward.”
On process, the statement alleged that the two envoys have “repeatedly bypassed, ignored, and undercut” the US intelligence community and the State Department, and that they are treating “a nation’s fight for survival like a real estate deal.”
Meeks, Smith, and Reed closed by warning that “surrendering in Ukraine and appeasing Putin will result in neither peace nor strength,” according to the joint release carried by the House Armed Services Committee Democrats.
The Moscow visit the statement was timed to
Kushner and Witkoff have landed in Moscow on Thursday, November 12, after two days of trilateral peace talks in Abu Dhabi involving US, Ukrainian, and Russian delegations.
Kushner told reporters the Moscow stop would focus on humanitarian issues and prisoner exchanges, with a swap of up to 1,500 detainees on each side under discussion. The meeting is also intended to provide Putin with a broader summary review of the Abu Dhabi talks.
After the Kremlin meeting, the envoys were set to travel to Dublin to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was already in the Irish capital rejecting US pressure to cede territory in the Donbas.
