Two key advisers to Donald Trump have presented him with a plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine, Reuters reported on June 25.
"We tell the Ukrainians, 'You've got to come to the table, and if you don't come to the table, support from the United States will dry up,'" he said. "And you tell Putin, 'He's got to come to the table and if you don't come to the table, then we'll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field,'" retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, one of Trump's national security advisers, summarised the plan.
A lasting peace in Ukraine would require additional security guarantees for Ukraine, Trump's advisors Kellogg and Fleitz said. Fleitz added that "arming Ukraine to the teeth" was likely to be a key element of that.
The plan was also an attack on US President Joe Biden’s Ukraine policy.
“The war in Ukraine is an avoidable tragedy that resulted from President Biden’s incompetence as a world leader and his chaotic foreign policy. The war has divided Americans and the conservative movement over what America’s involvement in this conflict should be and how the Ukraine War affects European and global stability,” Kellogg and Fleitz said in the outline of the plan.
Ukraine and its partners are worried about what a Trump presidency will mean for support for Ukraine in its struggle against Russia as Trump has promised to “end the war on my first day in office.”
Trump has yet to commit to a more concrete plan of action and was presented with the new plan but failed to explicitly endorse it.
The two advisors have presented their strategy to Trump, and the Republican presidential candidate responded favourably, Fleitz told Reuters in an interview. "I'm not claiming he agreed with it or agreed with every word of it, but we were pleased to get the feedback we did," he said.
The Kremlin said any peace plan proposed by a possible future Trump administration would have to reflect the reality on the ground but that Russian President Vladimir Putin remained open to talks.
"The value of any plan lies in the nuances and in taking into account the real state of affairs on the ground," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters.
"President Putin has repeatedly said that Russia has been and remains open to negotiations, taking into account the real state of affairs on the ground," he said.
Putin offered a ceasefire deal on June 14 that would freeze the current frontline and demanded Ukraine cede four regions annexed, but not controlled, by Russia last year on the eve of the Swiss peace summit held on June 16-17.
Kyiv rejected the offer out of hand and has insisted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s maximalist 10-point peace plan that he introduced at the G20 summit in November 2022 is the only formula Bankova is prepared to discuss. That plan requires Russian forces to completely withdraw from Ukraine’s territory before talks can begin.
China has also been lobbying for an end to the war and has been pushing its own peace plan that it introduced on the first anniversary of the start of the war.
Following the failure of the Swiss peace summit to make any progress towards ending the conflict, China has proposed organising its own peace summit with Russia in attendance to start some form of negotiations to end the conflict.
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