LOS ANGELES.–President Donald Trump’s 68-year-old Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff met for four hours in St. Petersburg with 72-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin trying to hash out a peace formula that ends the Ukraine War. Trump made it his highest priority during the 2024 campaign, ending the costly, wasteful and destructive war that’s raged on for over three years destroying Ukraine and causing mass casualties to Kiev and Moscow. Putin peace envoy Dmitry Kirill Dmitriev called the meeting “productive,” hinting a progress but no concrete agreement for a ceasefire and peace talk yet. Biden spent his four years without one constructive meeting with Putin, instead trading barbs from the first days of his administration. Why Biden took such as belligerent tone toward Putin is anyone’s guess. Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine ended generations of diplomacy, detente and arms control with Russia.
Trump has been pushing Putin to enter into a ceasefire agreement for the purpose of starting peace talks for a permanent settlement. No one has opposed a permanent settlement more that Ukraine’s 47-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky who now wants the EU to fund his proxy war in Ukraine. Brussels wants the war to end but just recently allocated $21 billion euros to the Ukraine in military aid. Putin doesn’t know how to interpret the EU’s funding of Ukraine military industrial complex. Putin asked Witkoff to obtain ceasefire and peace talks to stop funding Ukraine’s war machine. But with Trump’s commitments toward peace, Putin should be reassured that his enemy is no longer the United States. Putin is finally getting Trump’s message that he wants the reestablish normal diplomatic ties with Moscow. Trump tells Putin that that the U.S. no longer backs the Ukraine War.
Putin thought he was dealing with an implacable U.S. enemy, supporting NATO in trying to encroach on the Russian Federation. With the hours Witkoff spent with Putin, he knows that Trump has completely reversed Biden’s proxy war strategy with the Kremlin. Trump wants peaceful relations with the Kremlin but also, as a matter of high priority, to end the conflict. EU defense ministers see no evidence that Russian wants to end the war. Putin has continued during peace discussions to hit Ukraine hard without any let up. As Witkoff makes progress with Putin, Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg has been ruffling feathers suggesting that Ukraine could be portioned like East Berlin. “You could almost make it look like what happened in Berlin after World War Two,” reported the Times of London. Kellogg said the paper misinterpreted what he said.
Kellogg tried to clarify what he meant about Putin retaining territory inside Ukraine in the Donbas region. “I was speaking of a post-ceasefire resiliency force in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Kellogg said, infuriating Kiev. “I was not referring to partioning Ukraine,” Just as Witkoff was making progress with Putin, Kellogg had to step into it, driving Zelensky and his European allies away from any ceasefire or peace deal. Putin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was “no need to expect breakthroughs,” calling the “processing of normalizing relations is ongoing.” Peskov said there’s no need for breakthroughs because he sees Trump doing all the rights things to improve U.S.-Russian relations. Peskov didn’t say whether there were any plans to set up a summit with Trump. When that happens, you know there’s going to be some type of ceasefire or pace agreement.
Zelensky continues to make disparaging comments about Putin, doing nothing complete any ceasefire on the battlefield. Claiming that several hundred Chinese nationals were fighting for Russia in Ukraine, Zelensky offered no proof. “This means Russia is clearly trying to prolong war even by using Chinese lives,” showing that he really doesn’t want an real peace process knowing the kind of territorial concessions. Zelenksy said he told President Trump that he wanted to buy more advanced missile defense systems for Ukrainian cities. “We discussed this with President Trump—Ukraine is no just asking, we’re ready to purchase these additional systems,” Zelensky wrote on his X platform. Zelensky knows that Trump would not approve the sale of any advance missile system while he’s working to normalize U.S.-Russian relations and end the war.
Trump has said that the Ukraine War would never have happened if Trump were president. No question that Trump would not have armed Ukraine to the teeth over Kremlin objections, provoking Putin to invade Ukraine Feb. 24, 2022. “A war that should have never happened and wouldn’t have happened, if I were Presdietn!!!” Trump wrote on his social platform. Whatever Trump’s frustrations in no completing a ceasefire agreement, he knows it’s just a much Zelensky’s fault for turning the EU against the White House. EU foreign minister don’t see an end to the war in sight because we wants the EU to pay for the proxy war with the Kremlin because Trump has said no. Zelensky no longer considers the U.S. his ally in his fight with the Kremlin. When he blew up at Trump Feb. 28 in the Oval Office, it was because he realized that Trump wanted to normalize relations with Putin.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.WI
