According to a revealing report by the Financial Times, a secret back-channel of communication between the White House and Vladimir Putin attempted in the autumn of 2022 to prevent the risk of nuclear escalation in the war in Ukraine. Secret and unofficial contacts between three Westerners and Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed a concerted effort to prevent nuclear escalation during the early months of the war in Ukraine, following a warning from a Russian businessman that Moscow might resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons due to difficulties on the battlefield.
According to an investigation by the Financial Times published on October 24, 2026, American lawyer Richard Kohn and banker Bob Forsman, with the help of Matthias Warnig — a former official of the East German intelligence service Stasi and a close associate of Putin since the 1990s — attempted to relay messages to the Kremlin outside of official diplomatic channels in order to reduce the risk of nuclear confrontation.
War in Ukraine: Washington’s message to Putin
The affair began on March 3, 2022, approximately one week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Kohn received an encrypted call from a Russian businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.
According to Kohn, his contact argued that Russia was facing an existential threat and believed the United States was actively seeking its destruction. He further warned that Putin might be willing to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine to secure victory, stressing that events could spiral toward a Third World War.
Kohn had already discussed with Eric Green, then the National Security Council’s senior director for Russia, the idea of establishing an unofficial communication channel.
He subsequently reached out to banker Forsman, who had extensive experience in Moscow and maintained ties with Warnig, the former head of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project.
According to the investigation, Kohn and Forsman met with Warnig in Zurich in October 2022 and asked him to convey the message that the United States was not seeking to overthrow the Russian regime or destroy Russia, but rather to preserve the international order and achieve peace.
Upon his return from Moscow, Warnig met again with the two men at Frankfurt Airport on October 26 and relayed Putin’s position — that he saw no alternative to continuing military operations, but remained open to negotiations and desired a solution that would guarantee peace in Ukraine for the next one hundred years.
