Steve Witkoff, by refusing the services of his own interpreter during three high-level meetings with Vladimir Putin and resorting to the services of interpreters from the Kremlin, violated protocol, reported NBC News an American official and two Western officials familiar with the course of the negotiations.
Additionally, as one of the sources noted, “if they speak to each other in Russian, he does not understand what they are talking about.”
In a short video recording of the meeting published by the Kremlin, a smiling Witkoff is seen entering the room alone, not accompanied by advisors or experts who usually help American officials conduct delicate and complex negotiations. When a woman joined Witkoff at his side of the table, he pointed to her and said, “Interpreter? From the embassy? Good.”
Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said that using a Kremlin interpreter was a “very bad idea” that put Witkoff “at a very disadvantageous position.” “I speak Russian and have listened to Kremlin and American interpreters at the same meeting, and the language is never the same,” noted McFaul.
Furthermore, the presence of an American interpreter ensures a more accurate written report of the meeting for the rest of the White House team, said McFaul. “At the end of every meeting I attended, I interrogated the interpreter to ensure we all heard correctly, so the memorandum of conversation was absolutely accurate. You cannot do this using a Russian official,” the ex-ambassador is convinced, indicating that the rest of Trump's negotiating team could receive incorrect data about the course of the negotiations.
According to an analysis by investigative journalist Christo Grozev*, the interpreter is Natalia Koshkina, the second secretary of the linguistic department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, who previously worked at the Russian mission to NATO, and she is also listed as an employee of the propaganda RT.
“Obviously, there is no Russian embassy in Moscow (unless Witkoff thinks so), so the logical conclusion is that he was assured she was sent or approved by the U.S. embassy,” writes Grozev.
At the same time, Grozev found a photograph showing Koshkina present at various status events, including with the participation of former President Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. In one of the photos, Koshkina stands behind the head of the SVR Sergey Naryshkin.
* Recognized in Russia as a “foreign agent.”