The facts
The Trump administration’s negotiations with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine have expanded into discussions of a multibillion-dollar sale of Russian oil giant Lukoil’s international assets, the New York Times reported Saturday. The proposed transaction, which still requires approval from Washington and Moscow, would cover oil fields, refineries, and gas stations around the world. Lukoil has valued its international assets at roughly $20 billion.
The leading investment group reportedly includes billionaire Todd Boehly, who has donated $2 million to President Donald Trump’s political causes, Qatari and Emirati investors with business connections to Kushner or special envoy Steve Witkoff’s family, and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. There is no indication that either Witkoff or Kushner personally stands to profit from the transaction.
According to people familiar with the Sept. 5 Kremlin meeting, Putin raised the Lukoil transaction with Witkoff and Kushner and proposed completing it as a demonstration to Russians that economic relations with the United States could resume. The Americans reportedly agreed to work on the proposal. Kushner holds no comparable federal government position; he is Trump’s son-in-law, served as a senior White House adviser during Trump’s first term, sits on Trump’s Board of Peace executive board, and official White House photographs show him traveling alongside Witkoff aboard a U.S. government aircraft to the Moscow meeting.
Qatar-based businessmen Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat are expected to hold a major equity stake and are separately working with Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, on financing a multibillion-dollar luxury resort development in Albania. Another major investor would be an Abu Dhabi fund controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser, who controls a fund that purchased a major stake in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family cryptocurrency venture co-founded by Witkoff and now run partly by Witkoff’s son, and who helps oversee Lunate, a major stakeholder in Affinity Partners, the private-equity firm Kushner established after leaving government.
A senior administration official confirmed that Witkoff and Kushner helped negotiate the terms of the federal government’s prospective investment, including “a substantial upfront payment and profits interest for the United States.” A spokeswoman for Witkoff said he “takes no salary and travels the world on his own plane, at his own expense, working on behalf of President Trump to negotiate peace and bring hostages home to their families.” adding that he “has no conflict of interest and no financial stake in this matter.” Former Justice Department prosecutor and corporate-compliance lawyer Hui Chen told the Times: “This is an alarming and very concerning set of entanglements,” The report notes the connections do not establish that Kushner or Witkoff has manipulated U.S. policy for personal financial benefit.
Our take
Leave it to this White House to turn a war negotiation into a trade show. Putin sits down with Trump’s so-called peace team on September 5, and somewhere between the ceasefire talk and the coffee, he floats selling them $20 billion in Russian oil fields, refineries, and gas stations. The Americans reportedly agree to work on it. Peace through petroleum.
The best part is the guest list for the buying consortium. Todd Boehly, fresh off donating $2 million to Trump’s political causes, gets a seat at the table. The Al-Khayyat brothers from Qatar, currently building a multibillion-dollar Albanian resort with Jared and Ivanka. Sheikh Tahnoon from Abu Dhabi, who already bought into the Trump family’s crypto venture and bankrolls Kushner’s private-equity firm. It reads less like a diplomatic breakthrough and more like a group chat of guys who already do business together deciding to buy the gas station across the street from a war zone.
Then comes the comedy stylings of Witkoff’s spokeswoman, who wants you to know he “takes no salary and travels the world on his own plane, at his own expense, working on behalf of President Trump to negotiate peace and bring hostages home to their families.” How noble. The man flies private on his own dime so he can negotiate peace by day and broker Russian oil deals by night, insisting all the while he “has no conflict of interest and no financial stake in this matter.” Buddy, nobody asked about the plane. The question is why everyone bidding on sanctioned Russian oil seems to vacation with your family.
To be fair to the facts, the reporting is explicit: there is no indication either man personally profits, and the connections do not establish that anyone manipulated U.S. policy for personal gain. Fine. Noted. But you don’t need a signed confession to smell this one. Kushner isn’t even a government official. He’s the president’s son-in-law, riding a U.S. government aircraft into Moscow, sitting in on the meeting where Putin pitches the oil sale, while his private-equity firm, his Albanian resort partners, and his crypto investors all circle the same $20 billion carcass. An ethics lawyer called it “This is an alarming and very concerning set of entanglements,” which is lawyer for holy shit, look at this.
The White House calls it diplomacy. Treasury gets to approve the sale of a sanctioned Russian oil giant to the president’s business circle while the war it was sanctioned over is still going. If this is what peace looks like, the war was just the opening act for the yard sale.
