LOS ANGELES.–Inching his way to a Ukraine peace deal, 78-year-old President Donald Trump has told the Kremlin that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO no matter how much Ukraine’s 47-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky pushes for it. Trump reassurance goes a long way in satisfying a key demand for peace that the West stop its encroachment on the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin, 72, came to the conclusion before the Ukraine War that 82-year-old President Joe Biden sought to topple his Kremlin government. So whatever dispute Russia had with Ukraine, it became an existential crisis for Putin, realizing that the United States sought to oust him from power. Trump’s position has reversed any of those thoughts with Putin now seeing Trump and the United States as a strategic partner, no longer an enemy under Biden.
What was Biden trying to accomplish by funding proxy war against the Kremlin? Biden took decades of diplomacy, détente and arms control, trashing it all to support Ukraine’s war with the Kremlin. Whether admitted to or not, Biden provoked the Feb. 22, 2022 invasion by continuing to arm Ukraine to the teeth over Kremlin objections, creating a clear-and-present danger to the Russian Federation. Biden repeated his propaganda that the Ukraine War was “unprovoked and unjustified,” when, in fact, it was just the opposite. Of course Biden giving Ukraine unlimited cash-and-arms provoked Putin to move his army into Ukraine. Biden refused all of Putin’s overtures for months, continuing to arm Ukraine with the eventual intent of going to war with Russia. So, when Democrats and the fake news say the war was “unprovoked and unjustified,” it was exactly the opposite. Trump has now robbed Putin of his motivation behind the Ukraine War.
Trump has made clear, regardless of any peace deal in Ukraine that he wanted to normalize U.S.-Russian relations, returning to a time of global cooperation and partnership on a host of common interests. Biden turned Russia into an enemy of the United States. Putin knows now that Trump wants to expand U.S.-Russian ties by join-venturing on global projects, including mining and refining rare earth minerals in Russia. “We have heard from Washington at various levels that Ukraine’s membership in NATO is excluded,” said Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “Of course, this is something that causes us satisfaction and coincides with our position,” getting to the roots of the Ukraine War. No question that Zelensky’s constant demands for NATO membership fueled the conflict.
Zelensky antagonized Putin because he knew Biden would follow-up funding proxy war with the Kremlin. Zelensky welcomed all the cash-and-arms from the United States, essentially destroying decades of relations with Russia. And, in fact, this is one of the root causes of this conflict,” Peskov said, agreeing that Russia no longer sees a conflict with the United States. Since the U.S. controls NATO, Putin and the Kremlin saw Biden’s support as a direct threat to Putin’s rule. Biden and his former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitted in 2022 that the aim of the Ukraine War was to degrade the Russian military to the point it could no longer wage war. If that weren’t a declaration of war, then what was? With Trump emphatically rejecting war with the Kremlin, Putin has no reason to continue the conflict. He knows that Trump sees the Kremlin as a global partner again.
Trump has single-handedly sought peace with the Russian Federation, upending any continued motivation for Russia to continue. Putin no longer worries that the U.S. seeks to topple his Kremlin-backed government but expects to develop strong diplomatic relations. Putin’s only resistance to peace is about the sovereign Ukrainian territory he seeks in any long-term peace settlement. Putin conveyed his requirements for peace last week to Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. Without saying exactly what the five-hour meeting involved, it’s clear that Putin wants five Ukrainian territories to settle the conflict, including Kherson, Zaporizhihzia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. Zelensky will only go to the peace table kicking-and-screaming because he wants to surrender no territory to Putin. But clearly to end the war, Zelensky must trade land for peace.
Trump for some reason has been pushing for peace this week, something Peskov sees as a bit ambitious. More details must be worked out for the Kremlin before it agrees to end the conflict. EU and U.K. officials have been mucking up Trump’s peace efforts by agreeing with Zelensky that Ukraine gets the short end of the stick. “BOTH WILL THEN STAR TO DO BIG BUSINESS WITH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WHICH IS THRIVING, AND MAKE A FORTUNE,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, letting Russia and Ukraine know they stand to benefit by ending the conflict. “Work on finding a peaceful settlement cannot take place, and should not take place, in public,” Peskov said. “It should take place in an absolutely discreet mode,” reminding all parties that ending the war must go through the proper channels, not the global media.
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.
