Witkoff praises Putin as a humanitarian — to his shame and ours

President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff praised Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian” on Tuesday while representing the United States in talks with the Russian “president” in St. Petersburg.Witkoff couldn’t be more wrong.Vladimir Putin is an ex-KGB intelligence officer and Stasi liaison who served in Dresden at the height of the Cold War — a time period known for its repression, secret arrests, executions, and abuse of the people under Soviet rule. Putin proudly recalls his time with the Stasi and KGB. The KGB was known for its mass surveillance, censorship, forced labor camps, assassinations, and physical and psychological torment of dissidents. He is not a humanitarian but a brutal thug.Throughout Putin’s unlawful war of aggression in Ukraine, his military has committed atrocity after atrocity. When the war first broke out in 2022, there were the Bucha massacres with 458 bodies recovered, many showing signs of torture, nine of which were children under the age of 18.In July of 2024, Russian cruise missiles struck Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, the largest pediatric medical center in Kyiv. This was far from the first attack on a Ukrainian medical center. It is estimated that over 2,400 medical centers have been damaged or destroyed.Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff shake hands prior to their talks in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, April 11, 2025. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) This is what the U.S. envoy salutes as “humanitarian”? The Russian war machine under Putin thinks nothing of destroying residential buildings in Ukraine. In Kharkiv just days ago, a park was struck, killing 1-year-old Angelina and her mother, Inna.What humanitarian hits a children’s park?What about the mothers, sisters, brothers, and fathers of the 1.4 million Russian casualties forced into his conscript army? Putin’s bloodlust has shown his willingness to feed his war machine with the blood of his own men.Putin is no humanitarian to his own people, as they continue to bear the cost of his bloody stalemate of war. When the war broke out, Russian protesters poured into the streets opposing it. Over 1,700 protesters were arrested on the first day, but the number was estimated as high as 13,000 a few weeks into the war. After such violent repression, the protests went away.There are still 20,000 Ukrainian children who have been illegally moved to Russia, separated from their families and their homeland, forced into Russification, and who knows what else. But the U.S. envoy “salutes” the man behind 20,000 little souls being kidnapped and removed from their parents.PUTIN WANTS XI AT THE UKRAINE NEGOTIATING TABLE WITH TRUMP. HERE’S WHYBehind closed doors, some light flattery and sweet talk may occur. But calling such evil “good” publicly while acting on behalf of the American people is dangerous and shameful. It gives the impression that people think there is nothing wrong with what Putin is doing.That is a lie. Americans know exactly who Putin is, and he’s not a humanitarian.