Diplomacy is messy. Sometimes it requires holding your nose and smiling at monsters. But calling a wanted war criminal a humanitarian while children lie dead in a park crosses a line from realpolitik into sheer delusion.
US envoy Steve Witkoff did just that in St Petersburg, heaping lavish praise on Vladimir Putin during talks to end the war in Ukraine. The timing could not have been worse. Just forty-eight hours earlier, a Russian drone strike tore through a playground in the Kharkiv region, killing a fourteen-month-old toddler named Anhelina and her mother, Inna Mariukhna.
When you strip away the polished diplomatic spin, this episode highlights a disturbing disconnect at the heart of Washington's current foreign policy pivot.
The Cost of a PR Victory
The occasion for Witkoff’s praise was the release of Stephen Hubbard. Hubbard is a 74-year-old retired American schoolteacher who spent more than four years locked up in Russian prisons after being captured in Izyum. Securing the freedom of an aging US citizen is a win. Nobody denies that.
Families deserve their loved ones back.
Yet Witkoff chose to frame the exchange in terms that beggar belief. Turning to Putin during their meeting, he gushed that the Russian leader was a "humanitarian" just like Donald Trump.
Let's remember who we are talking about here.
Vladimir Putin is not a misunderstood statesman caught up in bureaucratic red tape. He is an indicted fugitive. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him over the systematic deportation of Ukrainian children. Thousands of civilians have died under his command. Hospitals, schools, and apartment blocks have been flattened.
Calling someone like that a humanitarian because he let one old man go home isn't diplomacy. It's grotesque flattery.
What Washington Chooses to Ignore
This cozy rhetoric doesn't exist in a vacuum. It comes as the Trump administration leans hard into a narrative that shifts blame away from Moscow and onto Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has faced intense pressure to halt drone strikes against Russian energy infrastructure—strikes that target the very refineries fueling Putin's war machine.
Washington wants cheap oil. Officials worry about soaring fuel costs, especially with energy disruptions rippling outward from the Middle East. So, the calculus shifts. Ukrainian security becomes secondary to domestic political convenience.
Meanwhile, intelligence reports paint a terrifying picture of what Putin is doing behind closed doors while smiling for American cameras.
Russia has quietly stockpiled hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of drones. They aren't gearing up for peace talks. They are building an arsenal designed to overwhelm Ukraine's defenses before winter sets in. Moscow's military factories churn out thousands of suicide drones every single month, alongside hard-to-intercept Iskander-M missiles.
Witkoff flew home claiming progress. He pointed to the release of Stephen Hubbard as proof of a new cooperative spirit. But back on the ground in Ukraine, the air raid sirens keep wailing.
The Dangerous Illusion of Easy Deals
Foreign policy hawks often talk about the art of the deal as if international conflicts are real estate transactions. You trade a concession here, you grant a compliment there, and everyone shakes hands over a signed contract.
Real life doesn't work that way. Autocrats don't respond to flattery with moderation. They read praise as weakness.
When US envoys stand face-to-face with an aggressor and hand out unearned moral validation, they undermine the global alliances meant to deter authoritarian expansion. They tell the world that atrocities carry no real diplomatic penalty as long as you occasionally hand over a hostage to sweeten the pot.
Anhelina will never grow up. Her mother will never push another stroller through a park. No amount of diplomatic handshakes in St Petersburg can change that fact.
Pretending otherwise isn't pragmatism. It's a moral failure that history will judge harshly.
