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The Faena Miami Beach hotel gets thousands of five-star reviews online. It is arguably the most luxurious hotel in the city - certainly up there with the Miami Beach Edition. So, if you were the US Representative for Florida's 13th congressional district and in town on the weekend of 25 October this year, looking for a Russian businessman sanctioned by the US Government for his links to the Kremlin, the Faena was the place to be.

It was also where Donald Trump's personally appointed peace envoy walked in with business ties to the very Kremlin-linked financial networks he was supposed to be negotiating against.

The Envoy who Walked in With Two Hidden Conflicts

Byline Times can reveal that Steve Witkoff entered this meeting carrying two conflicts of interest: his real estate empire has been financed, in part, by a former adviser to President Vladimir Putin's right-hand man on money and investment; and several of his Florida and New York developments have drawn on investment vehicles linked to post-Soviet networks now intertwined with Russia's political elite.

These financial entanglements starkly contradict the narrative that Witkoff's apparent willingness to support Moscow's position stems from inexperience. Long before he picked up the phone to Kremlin officials, he was already moving through business circles shaped by the same interests he was now claiming to mediate.

In fact, as long ago as 2011, the Kremlin's sovereign investment fund had recruited a Wall Street billionaire close to Trump as an adviser - and the same financier's firm later became one of Jared Kushner's biggest lenders, providing hundreds of millions of dollars for prime New York properties. Years before the current "peace plan" emerged, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner and a Kremlin-backed fund were already moving in a shared financial orbit.

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Inside the Faena Meeting and the 28-Point 'Peace' Plan

At the Faena in October, Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) - the Kremlin's sovereign investment vehicle - was joined by President Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and, Jared Kushner. The choice of venue was doubtless a good one - it is a self-proclaimed "exclusive sanctuary", defined by "decadent design, luxe amenities, and legendary hospitality."

It also happens to be co-owned by a close business associate of Steve Witkoff's: the Ukrainian-born, British and American citizen billionaire Len Blavatnik, whose fortune grew out of post-Soviet deals with one of Vladimir Putin's closest oligarch allies. Blavatnik was sanctioned by the Ukrainian Government in 2023.

These men were meeting at the Faena to finalise a 28-point peace plan for ending the war that the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, launched in Ukraine. Soon after the meeting, the plan landed like a FAB-3000 glide bomb on the international diplomatic community, prompting the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to warn on television: "Now, Ukraine can face a very difficult choice - either losing dignity or risk losing a major partner."

The Back-Channel Calls to Moscow

It has since emerged that, ten days before the Faena meeting, Witkoff held a call with President Putin's senior foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, on 14 October. A leaked transcript published by Bloomberg shows Trump's envoy coaching the Kremlin aide on how to pitch a "Gaza-style" peace plan to President Trump and reassuring him that Trump would give him "space and discretion" to get a de...