Retired general warns Kremlin car may have exposed Trump envoys' phones

Two of President Donald Trump's envoys traveled to their weekend meeting with President Vladimir Putin in a Russian government vehicle, a decision a retired U.S. Army general said could have allowed Moscow to copy the entire contents of their phones.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner rode in the vehicle on Saturday, when they met Putin in Moscow to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Randy Manner described the arrangement on CNN's 'OutFront' on Tuesday, telling anchor Erin Burnett it revealed a basic misunderstanding of how sophisticated Russian intelligence has become.

Manner said anyone who comes within a certain distance of a device concealed in such a vehicle risks having their contacts, messages and emails copied, and he called the envoys' decision to accept the car a 'ludicrous, unbelievable situation.'

The vehicle and the custom

Witkoff and Kushner were driven around Moscow in Aurus limousines provided by the Kremlin rather than cars from the U.S. Embassy, The Daily Beast reported. Delegations at high-level talks customarily use their own government's vehicles precisely to avoid the kind of exposure Manner described, in which a hidden device pulls data off nearby phones.

The two men met Putin at the Kremlin for more than three hours on Sept. 5 and left around 11 p.m. local time, the Kyiv Independent reported. Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev met them at the airport and posted a photograph captioned 'Welcome to Moscow, peacemakers Witkoff and Kushner.' He later joined them for a business lunch that reportedly ran about three and a half hours.

Both men are real estate developers Trump has used as envoys in high-level talks, and Kushner is the president's son-in-law and a former senior White House adviser. Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Friday that the pair carried a proposal to end the war and called them 'great negotiators.' The two had met Putin for five hours in December 2025 in talks that produced no breakthrough, and returned to Moscow in January.

The envoys brought updated versions of earlier proposals, though no details were officially disclosed, The Daily Beast reported. Ukrainian media reported the proposals contained the same concessions Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously treated as a red line, among them relinquishing territory and pulling troops from a contested region. Zelensky publicly welcomed the visit as a sign of progress, even as many Ukrainians reacted with dismay to the envoys' remarks.

What the envoys said

Kushner drew criticism for remarks at a briefing after the private negotiations. He said he preferred an earlier, three-way format for the talks, recalling a period when, in his words, 'Everyone was speaking in Russian to each other.' He described those discussions as friendly, apparently unaware the comment could read in Kyiv as a slight to Ukrainians.

He also characterized Putin's war aims, saying the Russian leader had objectives he wanted to achieve and 'different aspirations he has for his country that can also be achieved once this is concluded.' In Kyiv the comments were read as appearing to speak on Putin's behalf, The Daily Beast reported.

Witkoff, on his eighth trip to meet Putin, opened the Moscow session with warm words for the Russian leader. According to a readout on the Kremlin website, he told Putin that when he and his colleagues retire, their memories of the talks would rank at the very top.

Putin had welcomed the delegation by calling the situation a difficult one and praising the mediators, HuffPost UK reported from the Kremlin readout. He said Moscow found it comfortable to work with the Americans and had a high level of trust in them. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov later called the talks constructive, extremely frank and trustful, and said the Americans had prepared thoroughly and put forward several ideas for a settlement.

Confronted in Kyiv

At his news conference in Kyiv on Sunday, a Ukrainian reporter asked Witkoff whether he was ashamed to sit at the same table with an international war criminal, The Daily Beast reported.

Witkoff answered by describing the importance of relationships and how Moscow had received him, rather than the war-crimes framing. The exchange followed footage from Moscow in which he told Putin that his talks with the Russian leader would rank among his most cherished memories, remarks that drew condemnation online after the Kremlin published them.

We've always been treated respectfully by President Putin and his team

Witkoff and Kushner described the weekend's talks as 'encouraging,' the Associated Press reported, though no breakthrough was announced.

An analyst's doubts

On a separate CNN panel on Monday, Harrison Mann, a former U.S. Army major and former executive officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, questioned how serious the effort was. He noted that Vance and Rubio were nowhere near the negotiations and pointed to the envoys' record on Iran and Gaza. After eight trips, he said, it was unclear what deal, if any, they had offered.

Why the push stalled

The United States served as the primary mediator between Russia and Ukraine through 2025 and into 2026, but that role largely stalled in February, when Washington and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran and touched off a war that has run for more than six months, according to Time.

Mann argued the Iran war weakened Ukraine's hand. The United States used up offensive and defensive munitions that Ukraine wanted, he said, leaving the envoys with even less leverage than they had in February, when the talks stalled. He also noted an evolving arms race in which each side's battlefield advances tend to last only a few months.

The central disputes remain territory and control of a nuclear plant. Russia captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant from Ukraine, and Putin is demanding that Kyiv cede more of the eastern Donbas region in exchange for peace. Mann called those demands bold and probably unreasonable, while adding that Ukraine is unlikely to retake more ground by force. Russia has said it seeks to occupy the rest of Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk Oblast.

Strikes resume on Kyiv

Putin had ordered a 72-hour pause in strikes on Kyiv beginning at midnight on Sept. 5 to coincide with the visit, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media. Zelensky said Ukraine would refrain from striking Moscow through Monday and expected Russia to do the same. The offer came after an overnight barrage of ballistic missiles and 167 attack drones that Ukraine's air force reported before the delegation arrived.

From now through the end of Saturday, as well as on Sunday and Monday, Ukraine is ready to refrain from strikes on Moscow, and we expect the Russians to do the same regarding Kyiv

The pause did not stop the fighting. At least three people were killed and more than 20 injured in Russian drone attacks while the envoys met Putin, the Kyiv Independent reported, and Putin told the delegation Russia had not agreed to Ukraine's proposal for a broader ceasefire. Days earlier, a Russian drone had struck the headquarters of Ukraine's SBU security service in Kyiv, the first such strike since the invasion, CBS News reported.

The three-day halt expired at midnight on Sept. 8. Russia resumed strikes on Kyiv hours later, killing five people and injuring about 35, the Kyiv Independent reported, and Ukraine's military intelligence said Russia plans a final test of a new ballistic missile with an 800-kilometer range by the end of 2026.

The White House said the two sides discussed plans for next steps to be announced in the coming weeks, and the delegation thanked Putin for releasing Robert Gilman, an American Marine veteran freed last month after being held in Russia since 2022. Trump met Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025 without a ceasefire, and a planned Budapest summit was canceled that October. The war began with Russia's invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.