A long tête-à-tête with Vladimir Putin, without witnesses: Steve Witkoff enjoyed a rare privilege during his trip to Moscow on February 11. The primary objective of the trip, made aboard his private plane, was to bring back Marc Fogel, an American teacher detained in Russia. "The meeting ended, I looked at my watch and it was close to three and a half hours that we were in there," Donald Trump's special envoy later explained on CBS. "And hopefully that suggests that a lot of good things got accomplished."

On Tuesday, March 11, Witkoff was due to be in Saudi Arabia to participate in talks with Ukrainian negotiators dispatched by Volodymyr Zelensky, to set the framework for a ceasefire. But busy with his other mission, that of the hostages in the hands of Hamas, he will instead be in Qatar at the same time, leaving the Ukrainian discussions to be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. "He's a busy man these days," Rubio explained on the plane. Witkoff's promotion speaks volumes about the transactional diplomacy intended by Trump. He first appointed him as special envoy for the Middle East – a position held during the first term (2017-2021) by the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner – before also involving him in the Ukraine negotiations.

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