LOS ANGELES.–President Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, 81, said Russian President Vladimir Putin, 72, has valid concerns about NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. Putin wants a commitment during peace talks from Western officials that they’ll keep Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova neutral in the future, not joining the NATO alliance. “It’s a fair concern,” said Kellogg regarding the NATO expansion issue. NATO has said it’s inappropriate for any country to veto any future state from joining the alliance if they so choose. Kellogg, who’s served in the past a National Security Advisor, sees nothing wrong with Putin’s concerns in any peace settlement that the Western alliance agrees to keep Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, all former Soviet satellites, from becoming NATO members. Putin blames Ukraine’s 47-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky from seeking NATO membership.
Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stotenberg, caught on early to Zelensky’s demands to join NATO, realizing that he wanted to use Article 5 for the purpose getting NATO to fight Zelensky’s battle with 72-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We’ve said that to use, Ukraine coming into NATO is not on the table, and we’re not the only country that says that—you know I could probably give you four other countries in NATO and it takes 32 to allow you to come in to NATO,” Kellogg said. Kellogg acknowledges that Putin has valid point about Ukraine but other Western aligned countries that want no part of the Russian Federation. “That’s one of the issues that Russia will bring up” on June 2, when the Ukrainian and Russian delegation are scheduled to hold another round of talks. Ukraine wants Russia’s memorandum on key demands for peace beforehand.
Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was sending its delegation led by Vladimir Medinsky to Istanbul June 2. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha demanded that Russia supply the memorandum in advance before committing to a new round of peace talks. Peskov said that Russia wants to keep the negotiation out of the media, refusing to tip the delegation’s hand before the face-to-face meeting. Whatever the differences, Kellogg points out that these squabbles in preliminary discussions should not be an obstacle to peace talks. Whatever aspirations of former Soviet satellites to join NATO, they should not sabotage current talks to end the deadliest war on the European Continent since WW II. Kellogg thinks all these issues can be hashed out to get an acceptable final agreement. Putin wants assurances that Ukraine would no longer threaten Russia.
When Putin talks about the “root causes of war,” he’s referring to former President Joe Biden, arming Ukraine to the teeth on the Russian border. In the run-up to war, Biden refused to discuss with Putin new security arrangements for Ukraine. Putin wanted the U.S. to stop arming Ukraine with the intent of going to war with the Kremlin. “They’re not just talking Ukraine, they’re talking the country of Georgia, they’re talking Moldova,” Kellogg said. Kellogg said that it’s up to Trump to decide how he’ll deal in the future with former Soviet satellites trying to join the NATO alliance. Judging by what happened with Ukraine, NATO didn’t want to step into the middle of an ongoing war with the Kremlin. No matter what sympathy NATO has with Ukraine, it’s not going to join its battle with the Kremlin. Zelensky keeps pushing for the EU to takeover where the U.S. left off.
Kellogg said when both sides meet in Istanbul, they’ll trying to merge the two memorandums together to see how to resolve differences between the two sides. Zelensky and his partners in the EU like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz don’t want to cede land to the Kremlin in any final settlement. They want Putin to get out of Ukraine, something not likely to happen in any peace negotiation. If Zelenky gets anything, it’s possible for Putin to give a little on recently annexed provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhizhia, where it’s conceivable that Putin to return the provinces in good faith. “When we get into Istanbul next week, we’ll sit down and talk,” Kellogg said, saying that national security advisors from Germany, France and the U.K. would also be at the meetings. Trump hasn’t promised Russia or Ukraine anything, only that the U.S. would be an impartial broker.
Zelensky will be forced, regardless of today’s objections, to send a delegation to Istanbul, to continue the peace talks. Both sides have very different objectives in ending the Ukraine War. Putin wants assurances that the Western Alliance with respect the boundaries of Eastern Europe which is, so to speak, Russia’s backyard. Russia must accept that Ukraine wants its independence and assurances that no invasion would happen again. So, when it comes to negotiations and compromise, both sides have their requirements for a long-term settlement. Trump’s major objective in peace talks is to stop the killing field that accounts for about 1.2 million dead-and-injured in over three years of war. You’d think that both sides would jump at the opportunity to stop the bloodshed.
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.
