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By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with [2]
It is possible that after four hours of talking until almost 4 in the morning, Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin equivalent of the US National Security Advisor, was so tired he omitted to report in his read-out a novel part of the negotiations.
Ushakov’s read-out runs for 730 words; it was posted on the Kremlin website at 04:15 [3]. The official English translators were still asleep, and for the time being, as this goes to print, there is no official English version.
According to Ushakov, the US side comprised Steven Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Joshua Gruenbaum. Ushakov omitted to list the Russian side, but the published photographs indicate they were President Vladimir Putin, Ushakov, and Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian business representative who had met the Americans in Paris earlier this week.
Ushakov identified Gruenbaum as the new participant. He described [3] him as “a senior adviser to the White House, an expert on the economic dossier.” Ushakov, a veteran Russian ambassador in Washington, knows this is inaccurate.
Gruenbaum, 39 [4], a law and business school graduate in New York, used to be a salesman for takeover and restructuring of stressed assets at two New York investment funds, Moelis and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR [5]). His first job in the new Trump Administration a year ago was to take over and restructure the federal government’s contract procurement operations at the General Services Administration (GSA [6]) along the lines Elon Musk followed in taking over and restructuring the government’s personnel policies.
The GSA is part-time for Gruenbaum. A GSA spokesman has claimed [7]: “many officials serve in multiple roles. [GSA] Commissioner Gruenbaum is honored that the President has trusted him to support additional critical work that the administration is doing — a trust based on the commissioner’s track record of taking on challenging tasks and getting things done.”
Gruenbaum’s priority is with Witkoff and Kushner. He has been an active member of the New York Jewish negotiating team with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the post-military control of Gaza under Trump’s Board of Peace (BOP). In that role, Trump has just promoted [8] Gruenbaum to become, with Aryeh Lightstone, “senior advisers to the Board of Peace, charged with leading day-to-day strategy and operations, and translating the board’s mandate and diplomatic priorities into disciplined execution.” The Jerusalem Post reports [9] that Gruenbaum will play “a key role in helping BoP members with day-to-day operations.”
The connection between Gruenbaum’s role in the Gaza negotiations and his new place at the Ukraine talks is a swap — Russian sources believe — between the militarized reconstruction of Gaza which Trump is planning and the future of the four regions of Novorossiya which Putin is planning and the General Staff are fighting for. This swap, tabled overnight in the Kremlin, is Putin’s agreement to sit on the BOP board and accept the US-Israeli plan for Gaza in exchange for Trump’s agreement to the Russian territorial terms for a Ukrainian peace settlement.
The third element in the swap was signalled in Ushakov’s read-out, acknowledging “the situation in Greenland” was also “discussed.” But Putin had already signalled his concession the evening before, January 21, in a staged question-and-answer at the Security Council [10]. “As for Greenland. What is happening around Greenland does not concern us in any way.”
In Ushakov’s read-out, there is no confirmation of the Gaza and Greenland-for-Ukraine swap. He described the talks as “extremely informative, constructive and, I would say, extremely frank and trusting.”
The “next step”, Ushakov announced [3], confirming an earlier announcement from Kiev by Vladimir Zelensky, “has been agreed that the first meeting of the trilateral working group on security issues will be held in Abu Dhabi today, that is, on Friday, January 23, which means representatives of Russia, the United States and Ukraine…Our security negotiating group has already been formed and will fly to the Emirates in the coming hours. It includes representatives of the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, headed by Admiral Kostyukov, Chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff.”
The plan for working group negotiations on military and territorial terms and on economic terms has long been agreed in principle between the Russian and US sides but delayed in implementation by the US. According to Ushakov, Dmitriev will also go to Abu Dhabi to meet again with Witkoff. “The heads of the bilateral economic affairs group will meet in Abu Dhabi. This is already a bilateral group, that is, Russia-USA, Kirill Dmitriev and Steve Witkoff.” Ushakov omitted to say if the Ukrainians will also participate in this negotiation.
Ushakov claimed there has been no change in the Russian terms for a long-term peace covering all threats to continue the war against Russia, not a ceasefire with replenishment of Ukrainian warfighting capacities. “The main thing is that during the negotiations between our President and the Americans, it was stated once again that without resolving the territorial issue according to the formula agreed in Anchorage, one should not expect to achieve a long-term settlement. As Vladimir Putin emphasized, we are sincerely interested in resolving the Ukrainian crisis by political and diplomatic means. But until that happens, Russia will continue to consistently achieve the goals set for the special military operation on the battlefield, where the Russian Armed Forces hold the strategic initiative.”
Ushakov acknowledged there were also negotiations on Gaza, “a number of regional issues and the situation around Greenland.”
The swap on Gaza was double-edged, Ushakov has revealed, acknowledging that Putin is ready to accept Trump’s invitation, take his seat on the Board of Peace (BOP), and pay the $1 billion stakeholder fee on condition for Trump’s agreement to release the Central Bank of Russia reserves frozen since 2022. “During the exchange of views on the Peace Council, our readiness to allocate $1 billion from Russian assets frozen by the former US administration to the budget of this structure was emphasized. The rest of the funds from our reserves frozen by the United States could be used to restore the territories affected by the fighting after the conclusion of the peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.” Ushakov added that “the discussion on this topic will continue in the bilateral economic group” – Dmitriev and Witkoff.
Ushakov did not reveal whether the reference to “regional issues” included the escalation of the US and European war against Russia at sea.
In the hours preceding the Kremlin meeting, it was revealed that on order from President Emmanuel Macron, French forces seized the tanker Grinch in the Mediterranean, off the Spanish coast, and have taken the vessel and its crude oil cargo, loaded in Murmansk, to Marseille. Western media claim the Grinch was false-flagged with the Comoros. Lloyds List, a London shipping publication, claims [11] that despite the US, German, Italian, and now French maritime operations against vessels carrying Russian cargoes in defiance of sanctions, “after a brief pause Russia has continued to add sanctioned tankers to its flag.”
[12]Source: https://gcaptain.com/france-intercepts-russian-arctic-crude-oil-aboard-grinch-in-global-first/ [13]
[14]Source: https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1156149/France-boards-second-tanker-as-pressure-to-tackle-stateless-vessels-mounts [15]
On waking up this morning in Moscow, sources admitted to surprise at the Kremlin disclosures. “What do you expect — ” said one, “since Gorbachev, Russians are not going to fight if they can avoid it, or if there’s another way out that’s profitable.”