JAKE SMITH
Former President Donald Trump is currently weighing a plan, if reelected in November, to cut off aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to negotiate with Moscow on ending the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Neither Kyiv nor Moscow have been able to agree to terms to end the war, which started over two years ago and has dragged Europe and the U.S. into a broader conflict. Two advisers gave Trump a plan that would halt U.S. weapons aid to Ukraine unless it is willing to enter peace talks with Russia, and to conversely to flood aid to Kyiv if Moscow isn’t willing to talk, one of the advisers told Reuters in an interview Tuesday.
“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,” Fred Fleitz, an adviser who served in Trump’s National Security Council, told Reuters, noting that the former president viewed the plan favorably.
“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,’” retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, the second adviser, told Reuters. “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.’”
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told Reuters that only campaign statements should be considered official.
The plan outlines that a possible ceasefire deal would be set along the battle lines of the war during peace talks, according to Reuters. Fleitz told Reuters that Ukraine wouldn’t need to give up any more territory than it has already lost, but noted that he believed it was unlikely Ukrainian forces could gain those territories back.
“Our concern is that this has become a war of attrition that’s going to kill a whole generation of young men,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters that any possible ceasefire deal proposed by Trump would need to take into account the real state of affairs on the ground, noting that the Kremlin remained open to talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out his vision for a ceasefire earlier in June, but made dramatic demands for a deal, including the concession of expansive swaths of Ukrainian territory and the demilitarization of Ukrainian forces.
The U.S. has thus far provided Ukraine with over $175 billion in aid since the country’s war against Russia began in 2022, $70 billion of which is strictly military aid. Still, Ukraine has struggled to maintain defensive positions against Russian forces amid a shortage of both manpower and ammunition.
Trump has said on multiple occasions that he could end the war in “24 hours.”
Featured Image Credit: Flickr/Gage Skidmore
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