Trump Administration Ends its Efforts to “Mediate” a Peace Deal Between Russia and Ukraine
Trump continues to abandon his America First foreign policy agenda under pressure from his neocon Cabinet members, opting to continue fighting Biden's war in Ukraine with no end in sight.
President Donald Trump listens to his neocon Secretary of State comment during his February 28th meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. Trump has since appointed Rubio to serve as Interim National Security Advisor as well giving him unprecedented power. It is Trump’s most ardent neocon Cabinet members—Rubio, former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and US Special Envoy to Ukraine LTG Keith Kellogg who have likely been advising him to refuse any additional concessions to Russia, to keep arming Ukraine and to continue fighting Biden’s war against Russia in Ukraine.
Over three months ago, President Trump came to office with a lofty and noble goal of helping to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. Trump pledged “I am not going to start wars, I am going to stop wars.” Trump repeatedly pledged to end the war in Ukraine within twenty-four hours of being sworn back into office. However, on May 2nd, the US State Department announced that the Trump administration was officially pulling the plug on its efforts to mediate a peace agreement ending this tremendously destructive and dangerous conflict scarcely two weeks after the US shared its first peace plan with Russia and Russia. Truth be told, the US never was a genuine mediator of a peace agreement because apart from a one-week pause when Trump cut off military aid to Ukraine from March 4th to March 11th, he has continued US military involvement in Biden’s war against Russia from the moment he took office.
Over the past few months, Trump has been heeding the advice of his neocon advisors like former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Special Envoy to Ukraine LTG Keith Kellogg (USA Ret.) causing him to make a number of unforced errors and avoidable mistakes that together ensured his efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine would end in failure. These neocon advisors succeeded in persuading him to start a new, unnecessary war against the Houthis to pre-empt what the Trump administration assessed was a likely planned violation of their cease-fire against Red Sea shipping.
This US bombing campaign has been ongoing for the past forty-eight days with US strikes against 800 targets inside Yemen. That represents upwards of 800 less long-range precision strike munitions we now have available to deter a Chinese blockade and/or invasion of Taiwan later this year. This represents a huge waste of munitions when President Trump had already negotiated a Gaza cease-fire deal that ensured freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal and the Red Sea before he was sworn into office up until Israel violated it with US support. Now, both Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are threatening massive US bombing strikes on Iran at the same time the Trump administration has signed a minerals deal with Ukraine committing it to another decade of US military support and has announced it had given up on efforts to negotiate a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine. Needless to say continuing to prosecute Biden’s war in Ukraine and starting new ones in the Middle East is not what Americans voted for when they elected Trump as our 47th president.
Ending War in Ukraine Is Much Easier Than Claimed
Months ago, I sent a member of Trump’s cabinet an easily executable template to end the war in Ukraine within days not months but sadly the administration opted not to follow it. US-led peace talks failed because over the past three and a half months, with the exception of a brief one week suspension of US military aid, President Trump has refused to pressure Zelensky to make even the most minimalist concessions to achieve a peace deal ensuring Ukraine would reject the US peace framework which Trump said Russia had accepted. Without US involvement the chances of a negotiated peace deal with Russia absent a massive Russian offensive or Ukrainian military collapse are now zero.
The solution to end the war in Ukraine could not be any simpler. All Trump would have to do would be to threaten Zelensky with a cut off of Starlink access to get him to sign the final April 15th, 2022 version of the Istanbul agreement, accepting Russian proposed limits on the quantities and ranges of Ukrainian offensive strike weapons and agree to recognize de facto Russian control over the five oblasts along the current line of control. This would be a peace agreement Russia has reportedly already informed us they would accept. If he did that, the war would be over in less than a week with a full, permanent cease-fire as was planned to occur on April 9th when the original Istanbul Agreement, which was largely written by the Ukrainians, approved by Zelensky and initialed by both sides, was to be signed.
Alternatively, Trump could make good on his threat to suspend all US aid to Ukraine, close all our bases there while pulling all US troops, intelligence officers and defense contractors out of the country along with as many US weapon systems as we can to end direct US involvement in Bidens continuing war against Russia. From an America First conservative foreign policy standpoint there really are no other options. Then the US could begin lifting economic sanctions on Russia, normalizing trade and economic ties, and creating a new geostrategic partnership with Russia that would enable us to neutralize its military alliance with the People’s Republic of China and establish a new source of critical rare-earth minerals. Doing so would allow Trump to accomplish his objective of a strategic US realignment from Europe to the Western Hemisphere and the Western Pacific and let our European partners keep supporting Ukraine if they choose to since the US has no interest in who wins the war in Ukraine or where the postwar border ends up being drawn. It's not that complicated. All it would take is the political courage to do so which Trump has demonstrated in abundance in the recent past on this and other issues.
Instead, it appears that the Trump administration has decided to continue US military involvement in the war against Russia and continue arming Ukraine and is considering secondary tariffs on Russian energy shipments. If so, this represents a massive victory for Communist China as it likely represents a decision on the part of the president to completely abandon his brilliant plan to form a geostrategic partnership with Russia to neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance. This isn't Bidens' war anymore. The war in Ukraine is Trump's war now, and if he keeps arming and providing military aid to Ukraine to unnecessarily prolong the conflict, he will be partially to blame for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who are killed and wounded henceforth. Indeed, the war in Ukraine, which was deliberately provoked by his predecessor could end up being Trump’s Vietnam but this time with a potential threat of Russian nuclear escalation.
While President Trump has met with Zelensky on several occasions over the past year. tragically, he has never attempted to convene a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the conflict as he promised to do following what he termed were successful meetings between Secretary Rubio and Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov on February 18th. Had he opted to do so, he might have achieved a major diplomatic breakthrough in negotiating a peace deal with Moscow given his near legendary negotiation skills. The last time Donald Trump met with Vladimir Putin was during the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019, half a dozen years ago. They have not had an in-person meeting since then. You would think that if Trump really wanted to keep his promise to end the war in Ukraine he would have wanted to meet with Putin before giving up on the peace process.
US-Ukraine Mineral Deal Disincentivizes Zelensky from Ever Agreeing to Peace with Russia
This past week was unquestionably the worst yet for President Trump as he had two major foreign policy failures this past week which together represent a major turning point for the administration which will likely have lasting negative ramifications. The first and most obvious was the failure of his promise to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours as the Trump announced it was abandoning its efforts to end what Trump has rightly described as a senseless and unnecessary war. The second was that the Trump administration caved to all but one of Zelensky’s demands with regards to the terms of the US-Ukraine minerals agreement that was signed on April 30th. Zelensky continues to treat Trump as if he is the leader of a great power on par with the US not realizing Ukraine is a US military protectorate which would likely collapse within months without US support yet with the exception of a brief one-week interruption in US military support, Trump has yet to take any action against Zelensky to put him back in his place.
According to Ukraine, the minerals deal commits the US not only to long-term economic investment in Ukraine but also to continue arms sales to Ukraine for at least the next decade, which is a de facto US security guarantee for Ukraine which Trump repeatedly stated he would never agree to. This decade long period mirrors almost exactly the ten-year bilateral security agreement which Joe Biden signed with Ukraine last year. While President Trump recently declared that he was beginning to think that Putin was stringing him along, it looks like it was Trump who has been stringing Putin along and making him believe Trump was willing to make the concessions necessary to achieve a landmark negotiated peace settlement ending the war in Ukraine. That said, it does appear that once the Biden authorized aid runs out in the next few months, there is no sign that Trump intends to continue giving Ukraine weapon systems and munitions for free as Biden did totaling $350 billion in direct and indirect US aid over the past few years.
The signing of the minerals deal with Ukraine combined with the administration’s decision to commit the US to continue its security assistance and involvement in the war against Russia has served to greatly embolden Zelensky to continue resisting all of Trump’s efforts to negotiate a peace deal. Trump himself has stated he believes continued US military support might be discouraging Zelensky from supporting his efforts to achieve peace with Russia because Ukraine is a small country, and the US is much more powerful. That is why the most important step the Trump administration could take to achieve peace would be to fully withdraw all US personnel including military and intelligence personnel and contractors from Ukraine while continuing its efforts to mediate a peace deal but from a position of genuine neutrality. The US should only sell weapons to Ukraine once Zelensky has been replaced by a new Ukrainian leader who is genuinely committed to negotiating a realistic and durable peace with Russia based on the US peace framework and the terms of the Istanbul Agreement.
These developments represent a massive, unexpected victory for Zelensky, the EU, Biden Democrats and neocon Republicans and a massive defeat for the Trump administration’s previously articulated foreign policy objectives. Not only has Trump given up on his efforts to end the war in Ukraine but he has also signed on to Biden’s policy of providing indefinite economic and military assistance for the Zelensky regime—essentially a lesser version of Biden’s blank check that he promised Zelensky in return for refusing to sign the Istanbul Agreement on April 9, 2022 to enable “the dictator without elections” as Trump rightly called Zelensky to continue NATO’s war against Russia indefinitely.
Russian officials have stated that if it a peace deal does not award Russia all four oblasts of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk along their constitutional borders they will continue fighting until they conquer Odessa, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv as well.
Trump’s apparent decision to abandon peace talks almost before they began and continue fighting Biden’s war in Ukraine indefinitely won’t just prolong the death and destruction in Ukraine it will likely cause it to accelerate by giving a green light to a massive Russian offensive in the Sumy and Zaporizhia region designed to surround and destroy the Ukrainian army and force them from all Ukrainian territory on the right bank of the Dnipro River. Previously, Russia stated that if its terms for recognition of Russian control over the four regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia were not accepted, they would seize control of Novorussiya which encompasses the Ukrainian provinces of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Odessa cutting off Ukraine from the Black Sea including forty-two percent of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.
The chances of the outbreak of a direct war between Russia and European NATO, which could quickly escalate to the nuclear level, will likely increase the longer the war goes on, the more territory Ukraine loses and the closer it is to collapsing militarily as does the possibility that Trump might be misled by his neocon advisors into joining such a conflict, particularly assuming continued US involvement in the war. Indeed, earlier today, after the minerals deal was signed and the administration announced it was giving up on negotiating a peace deal with Russia, Putin gave an interview in which he refused to rule out using nuclear weapons to defeat Ukraine. A fair and lasting peace on Russian terms, however, unpalatable to Zelensky, would be far preferable than Russian nukes being used on Ukraine to force its total capitulation on far worse terms and perhaps even a potential world war being fought between Russia and NATO over the location of Ukraine’s postwar borders over 5,200 miles away along the farthest fringes of Eastern Europe.
“During a preview of an interview with Russian state media, which was shared with the Associated Press, Putin said the country has “enough strength and means to bring what was started in 2022 to a logical conclusion with the outcome Russia requires.” When asked about Ukrainian strikes in Russian territory, Putin responded, “There has been no need to use those (nuclear) weapons … and I hope they will not be required.”
The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community predicted that continuing Biden’s war in Ukraine could lead to a full-scale war between Russia and NATO with “the potential use of nuclear weapons” so why is the Trump administration wanting to take that risk?
During a televised meeting on April 25th with General Garisimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Putin said that the liberation of Kursk and Belgorod regions and the creature of a security zone in Sumy “has set the conditions for the destruction of the Kyiv regime.” This suggests that, with the collapse of peace talks which had been sponsored by the Trump administration, a massive Russian offensive is being planned aimed at collapsing the Ukrainian military that could begin as early as later this month with the Russian army arriving once again at the gates of Kyiv which will be the subject of my next article.
Why Did President Trump Adopt a Peace Plan which Russia Had Already Rejected?
Trump has suggested Biden’s war in Ukraine is a morally and strategically bankrupt policy that was serving to unnecessarily prolong the death and destruction in Ukraine while also increasing the chance of provoking an unnecessary nuclear world war with the Russian Federation fought over a patch of territory in southeast Ukraine a little larger than the tiny Baltic nation of Lithuania. Accordingly, he resolved to end it as quickly as possible after returning to the White House.
Back in November, I warned that if Trump pursued the Kellogg Plan, that it would prolong the war in Ukraine by several months due to the fact that the Russians had publicly rejected much of the Kellogg plan and that there was zero chance it would be successful in achieving a peace deal because it gave no incentives for Ukraine to agree to one. I also strongly advised him to immediately cut off all military aid to Ukraine following his inauguration to pressure Zelensky to agree to a peace deal. I predicted that, within a few months of being sworn into office, Trump would grow tired with Kellogg’s failure to make progress with Russia and demand that he accept more of Russia’s peace terms to successfully finalize a peace deal so that history would remember him as a transformational peace president. Instead, Trump unexpectedly refused to revise the terms in anyway, thereby opting to accept failure less than three and a half months into his second term while signing an extremely ill-advised minerals deal with Ukraine including a security agreement and continue Biden’s war in Ukraine more or less indefinitely. Now, with the Trump administration’s announcement that it would end its efforts to mediate a peace deal, the fatal flaws of the Kellogg Plan in pushing an unnecessary cease-fire and refusing to make any concessions to Russia beyond those proposed in February appear to have killed any chance of a negotiated peace agreement unless Trump changes course, thus dooming Ukraine to suffer hundreds of thousands more casualties and lose far more territory.
While previously, the Trump administration wisely stated that if they decided a negotiated compromise peace deal could not be achieved, it would completely end US participation in the conflict, it now seem to be planning to continue fighting the war in Ukraine indefinitely “as long as it takes” as Biden used to say. This, despite the fact that doing so would essentially blow up Trump’s courageous and visionary grand strategy of forming a grand geostrategic partnership with Russia to neutralize its military alliance with the PRC. It is the pursuit of this bold strategy that is the key to determining whether Trump is remembered as a transformational peace President that made the US much more safe and secure or as a failed President like his predecessor that made America less safe and more insecure. While this strategy could still be achieved if the US ended its involvement in the war in Ukraine due to Zelensky’s continued intransigence and refusal to make any concessions whatsoever to negotiate a peace deal with Russia, it will be doomed to fail if the Trump administration foolishly opts to continue its direct involvement in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.
Why Did the US Attempt to Negotiate a Peace Deal Ending the War Fail?
Over the past two and a half months, the Trump administration has been working diligently to get both sides to agree to a short-term thirty-day cease fire with little success under the mistaken assumption on the part of LTG Keith Kellogg, whose peace plan was adopted by Trump back in November, that serious discussions on a comprehensive peace agreement ending the war in Ukraine could not begin until a temporary cease-fire had been achieved. However, there is no reason why the administration should have operated under the misconception that achieving a temporary cease-fire was a necessary pre-condition to negotiate a fair and enduring lasting peace ending NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. During the Korean War, peace negotiations for an armistice agreement lasted over two years during which major fighting continued before both sides were able to agree on an armistice agreement.
During a meeting between Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Riyadh, Russia informed the US on February 18th that it was willing to accept a thirty-day cease-fire on the express condition that the main terms of a peace framework had been substantially agreed upon, leading Moscow to believe that the prospects for a permanent peace settlement were sufficiently high. Accordingly, agreeing to most of Moscow’s peace terms has always been the key to achieving an end to the fighting as US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff informed the president following his meeting with Putin on April 11th.
Since that time, the administration has touted its partial success in getting both parties to agree to a thirty-day suspension on attacks on energy infrastructure in accordance with the Kellogg peace plan, which as I have noted was doomed to fail. On March 11th, Zelensky agreed to full thirty day cease-fire but stated that Ukraine would not honor it unless Russia accepted its conditions which were designed by Ukraine and its EU partners to be unacceptable to Moscow. On March 18th, Russia agreed to a cease-fire on energy infrastructure which Ukraine accepted the following day. However, Ukraine proceeded to violate the cease-fire provoking Russia to violate it as well. The Trump administration announced a Black Sea cease-fire agreement with Russia and Ukraine on March 25th after meeting with both the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Riyadh.
Politico reported on March 25th:
In two separate statements, the White House said all sides will “ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea.” The U.S. is also going to help Russia recuperate its “access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports” and global shipping. The agreement is a big deal, as shipping rights and safety in the Black Sea have been a challenge for negotiators seeking to end Russia’s three-year invasion of Ukraine. The disruptions to shipping in the waterway have also added to worries about global food security, given the reliance of many countries on Russian and Ukrainian exports of grain, seed oil and fertilizer.
However, Russia demanded that the US lift its SWIFT banking sanctions on it before it implements the Black Sea partial cease-fire which was negotiated on March 24th but Europe appears to have a veto on doing that and the EU is stating it won’t lift the sanctions until Russia withdraws all of its troops from former Ukrainian controlled territory which it will never do. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared the administration’s openness to lifting the sanctions but the EU vetoed the idea saying that the sanctions was not lifted until a peace agreement had been signed by both parties. Offering Russia partial economic sanctions relief is a key element of getting Russia to agree to any cease-fire.
As I have noted, the Kellogg plan offers zero chance of a final peace agreement so it’s unlikely that Russia will accept a cease-fire unless the terms of the US peace framework released on April 18th are revised by President Trump in Russia's favor, specifically including the provisions relating to Ukraine’s partial disarmament as agreed to by Ukraine under the Istanbul Agreement in March 2022. Putin can be trusted to keep a peace agreement with acceptable terms for Russia because the whole point of Russia's Special Military Operation was not to conquer Ukraine or even annex Ukrainian territory but rather to get the US and Ukraine to sign an agreement getting NATO out of Ukraine and demilitarizing it along the Finnish Cold War model--ie Finlandization.
The reason that the incremental approach of the Trump administration of trying to negotiate a partial interim cease-fire is meeting with little success is because it is failing to address the root causes of the war without which Russia says no peace agreement can be agreed to. Accordingly, without making meaningful concessions to Russia in the terms of a final peace deal, the administration’s chances of succeeding will remain slim. Meanwhile Zelensky’s agreement to a thirty-day cease fire was forced and insincere only being issued because he was desperate to restore US military aid shipments to Ukraine which had been cut off a week earlier following Zelensky’s decision to disrespect President Trump in the Oval Office and denounce him for allegedly repeating Putin’s talking points. He almost certainly has no intention of honoring that pledge absent much more serious pressure from the Trump administration.
The Trump administration has already ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine as part of any peace deal and has stated that Ukraine will have to give up its hopes to retake most, if not all, of its lost territories under a peace agreement. While continuing to publicly state that Russia is fine with accepting tens of thousands of NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine to enforce a peace agreement after the war ends, reports indicate that the Trump administration is considering an entirely non-European peacekeeping force consisting of troops from Brazil and the PRC given Russia’s adamant opposition to the deployment of peacekeeping troops from Europe. Furthermore, Trump’s acting Special Envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff has stated that the US and Russia should pick up where Russia and Ukraine left off by including the terms of the Istanbul Agreement in any final peace deal, a position strongly supported by the Russian side. Accordingly, the US and Russia’s negotiating positions may not be all that far apart.
President Trump has recently expressed his frustration with Russia’s reluctance to accept an unconditional thirty-day cease-fire agreement despite the fact that Zelensky has said he would only accept such a temporary cease-fire if Russia accepted Ukraine’s conditions.
The Epoch Times reported Trump warned he might impose sanctions on Russia:
If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault ... I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump reportedly told NBC News on March 30. “That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25 percent tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.” The tariffs on Russian oil will be imposed within a month if no cease-fire deal is reached, Trump said, according to the NBC report.
However, as I have written previously, there are no amount of additional US economic sanctions or tariffs on Russian goods that will be successful in compelling Russia to accept a cease-fire that doesn’t include substantial concessions or pressure Russia into accepting a peace deal that does not incorporate virtually all of their main peace terms. President Trump told NBC he is planning on speaking to Russian President Putin again sometime this week.
Trump’s Vexing Zelensky Problem
During the past few months since he returned to the White House, America’s NATO partners have served as enablers for Zelensky’s stubborn refusal to lift his ban on negotiating peace with Russia causing President Trump to grow increasingly frustrated and angry with them as many of whom have been going all out to sabotage his noble efforts to restore peace and stability to Europe.
The American Conservative reported:
Yet the Europeans have managed to do something to wreck the peace process so far. While they cannot wage the war, they are perfectly capable of continuing to fund Ukrainian war aims, and thus far they have continued to do so, frustrating the American attempts towards a grand bargain with Russia. A recent report from the Economist demonstrates this tension: Another sign of the times is that Pentagon figures recently questioned one ally about why it was still supplying weapons to Ukraine—a challenge that was ignored. Diplomats in Washington also report that some Trump aides say privately that they are “fed up” with Europe’s effort to strengthen Ukraine.
Germany’s Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently urged Ukraine not to concede any territory occupied by Russia in furtherance of the peace deal proposed by President Donald Trump a couple of weeks ago. On April 22nd, the EU came up with their own peace framework which repudiated a number of key provisions of the US version causing the Trump administration to recall Secretary of State Rubio and announce he would not attend a meeting with the foreign ministers of EU member states and and Ukraine as previously planned.
As I have been writing since he refused to show up for the signing of the Istanbul Agreement in April 2022, it is Ukrainian President Zelensky not Russian President Vladmir Putin that remains the biggest obstacle to peace. President Trump has issued a number of statements since February suggesting he is in full agreement. On April 17th, Trump said that he was “not a big fan” of the Ukrainian leader. That would be an understatement following Zelensky’s ridiculous antics during his meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office on February 28th.
President Trump has rightly blamed Zelensky for provoking Russia to invade Ukraine instead of seeking a diplomatic solution based on Ukraine’s neutrality which was mandated by the Ukrainian constitution before it was changed in 2019. Trump stated, “You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” he said, casting doubt on Zelensky’s strategy and approach. “When you start a war, you got to know you can win.” In fact, Russia is currently 35 times larger than Ukraine, but President Trump raises an excellent point that Nazi Germany learned the hard way when it invaded the Soviet Union which was thirty-three times larger at the time. As I have noted in the past, any sixth grader could have simply looked at a map showing the disparity in size and power between Russia and Ukraine and accurately foreseen which side would end up winning the war. Yet the supposed top national security experts in the West spent much of the last three years claiming Ukraine could defeat Russia.
The truth is that Ukraine has no logical, rational or defensible reason to want to continue fighting the war as it has no chance of regaining any lost territory militarily and is losing more territory and troops every month. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently claimed that the war in Ukraine was at a stalemate and that there was no military solution to the conflict. However, recently released and increasingly asymmetric casualty figures suggest that statement may be misleading. During a press conference earlier this afternoon, President Trump stated, “You're going to be very disappointed when you find out the real number of people that were killed. It's far greater. Many times greater I believe, but far greater than the numbers you are putting out." Trump is absolutely right in so stating.
The Jamestown Foundation recently reported that Ukraine’s casualties are estimated to be at least 6.3 times higher than Russia’s with Ukraine having suffered an estimated two million casualties to date as opposed to less than 300,000 for Russia. This equates to Ukraine suffering over 39,000 permanent losses (killed and severely wounded) a month, supporting a previous assertion by Ukrainian Army Commander in Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi that the intake of 30,000 new draftees a month is not sufficient to replace Ukraine’s increasing battlefield casualties. Accordingly, the longer it waits to make peace with Russia the worse off it will be especially if Ukrainian warnings of a massive Russian spring offensive are proven correct.
Furthermore, Ukraine would benefit far more from a peace deal even on Russian terms due to the fact it would end the slaughter of two generations of Ukrainian men and allow 10-11 million Ukrainian refugees to return to their home. It would also enable the long process of Ukrainian reconstruction of Ukrainian’s destroyed cities and critical infrastructure to begin, potentially facilitating a return to a new era of Ukrainian peace, economic prosperity and security. In fact, the only one that benefits by an unnecessary prolongation of what President Trump has rightly called this “senseless” war is Zelensky which his why he refuses to lift the ban on negotiating peace with Russia and why he refuses to end martial law as a pretext to refuse to hold a democratic election and stay in power longer knowing he would lose in a landslide given his 9-16% approval rating in the polls.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arguing with President Trump in the White House and falsely accusing him of parroting Russian talking points. Zelensky has proven the chief obstacle to peace in Ukraine and is as President Trump correctly stated, “a dictator without elections.”
On April 23rd, White House Press Secretary told reporters that President Trump’s “patience is running very thin” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as negotiations for an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine stretch on. “The president’s frustrated; his patience is running very thin,” she told an impromptu gathering in the White House driveway. “He wants to do what’s right for the world. He wants to see peace. He wants to see the killing stop, but you need both sides of the war willing to do that, and unfortunately, President Zelensky seems to be moving in the wrong direction.”
The Hill reported:
Trump publicly blasted Zelensky in a Truth Social post earlier that day, accusing the Ukrainian leader of stymieing peace talks with his remarks this week about Russia’s occupation of Crimea. “Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea,” Zelensky said during a press conference Tuesday in Kyiv, as quoted in a Wall Street Journal article that Trump cited in his subsequent post. “There’s nothing to talk about here. This is against our constitution.” Trump wrote online that Zelensky’s comment was “very harmful” to the talks and that Crimea “is not even a point of discussion.” But Trump last week indicated the U.S. would be ready to walk away from its peace-brokering efforts if a resolution didn’t come together quickly. “If, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass,” he said Friday.
Politico reported that Trump bashed Zelensky over his comments refusing to recognize Russia’s control over Crimea. “The situation for Ukraine is dire — He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “The statement made by Zelenskyy today will do nothing but prolong the “killing field,” and nobody wants that! We are very close to a Deal, but the man with “no cards to play” should now, finally, GET IT DONE.”
To date, Zelensky has not made even one minor concession in terms of his maximalist demands on the terms of a peace agreement with Russia following three and a half months of US diplomatic efforts to bring Russia and Ukraine closer together to ending the war. Even after seeming to agree to Trump’s demand for a thirty-day cease-fire, Zelensky has continued in his maximalist demands for a full withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory and the return of all of Ukraine’s pre-2014 territory as well as $300 billion in Russian reparations, 200,000 NATO combat troops deployed to Ukraine along its border with Russia while demanding Russian President Vladimir Putin turn himself in the International Criminal Court to be prosecuted and imprisoned for war crimes there is no evidence he committed. Zelensky continues to claim that Ukraine cannot agree to end its pursuit of NATO or recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea because it would be in violation of its constitution.
However, Ted Snider notes it can be changed to allow it noting:
And as for Ukraine’s constitution committing it to the pursuit of NATO membership, constitutions can be amended, as, in this regard, the Ukrainian constitution has. Ukraine’s Declaration of Sovereignty and its Constitution both committed it to neutrality and prohibited entry into a military pact, including NATO. That changed in February 2019 when then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko amended the constitution, committing Ukraine to a “strategic course” that pursued NATO membership. As Poroshenko changed the constitution in order to pursue NATO membership, so Zelensky can change it back.
President Trump Should Pursue his Previous Plan to Remove Zelensky from Power
Zelensky has proven himself to be an irrational hothead and a clear and present danger to both US and Ukrainian national security who has spent the last few years trying to provoke Russia to escalate the war with Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on Russia’s nuclear bases and nuclear missile defense radars in the hopes it would pressure NATO into direct military intervention in the war knowing that is Ukraine’s only hope to regain its lost territories. For this and the other reasons noted above, Zelensky’s departure from power in Ukraine should be a paramount element of any lasting peace because Zelensky has proven he is willing to do just about anything including conspire with Trump's political opponents in the EU and Democrat party to sabotage Trumps noble efforts to save Ukraine by negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine with Russia. If he remained in power, he would almost certainly seek to violate the terms of a peace agreement to provoke Russia to invade again.
While President Trump has drawn attention to a recent Russian missile attack in Kyiv, last week, Zelensky made a veiled threat that Ukraine might engage in drone and missile strikes on Russia's May 9th Victory Day Parade in Moscow.
Newsweek reported: "The Kremlin has dismissed comments by Ukrainian President Zelensky that Russia should be concerned about its forthcoming "Victory Day" parade in Moscow, which will mark 80 years since the end of World War II. Peskov was responding to Zelensky's comments on Tuesday that Moscow is "worried that their parade is in jeopardy, and rightly so." Zelensky gave no further details, but Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Zelensky of "literally planning terrorist attacks on air."
Russia’s Victory Day Parade this Friday will be attended by no less than nineteen foreign leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Lula da Silva. If he were crazy enough to try that, Putin would likely respond by leveling Ukraine's presidential palace and Defense Ministry buildings to attempt to decapitate Ukraine's entire political and military leadership something he has deliberately refrained from doing for the past few years. Alternatively, he could just detonate a tactical nuclear weapon above the presidential palace in Kyiv to force Zelensky to capitulate in a single day as I noted Russia could in an article I published a few years ago. Another possibility is that, given the potential threat to the life of China’s leader, the PRC could declare war on Ukraine and send PLA divisions to help Russia defeat it more quickly. Either way, Zelensky’s life would be in severe danger were he insane enough to follow through on his threat. In fact, Zelensky is already claiming that Ukraine has discovered 155 PLA soldiers fighting alongside Russian troops saying Ukraine has captured two of them in Donetsk. These Chinese troops were likely sent by Beijing to gain battlefield experience while China’s “Lend-Lease” shipments to Russia sent under the terms of its mutual defense pact with Moscow have included hundreds if not thousands of combat drones and a wide range of other weapon systems and munitions
President Trump has also been angered by Zelensky adamant refusal to agree to his demand to schedule a democratic election in violation of Article 83 of Ukraine’s constitution which does not ban presidential elections during times of war or martial law as he claims. This fact has been confirmed by no less than the Chairman of the Ukrainian Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk who stated “there is no constitutional ban on holding elections during martial law.” Even General Kellogg, who has proven to be ridiculously biased in favor of Ukraine has said that Zelensky must hold a democratic election by August or September at the latest.
The Trump administration could likely force Zelensky to schedule a democratic election for this summer by threatening to cut off all US military assistance including Ukraine’s Starlink access which Elon Musk has correctly noted would cause its frontlines to collapse. However, Zelensky knows that he would be sure to lose any free and fair democratic election because his approval rating is somewhere between 9 and 16 percent so he might opt to risk a Ukrainian military collapse rather than risk losing his dictatorial power and control. Elon Musk, who has denounced Zelensky as “evil” for his decision to continue to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands of brave Ukrainian soldiers in an unwinnable war, has proposed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be offered "amnesty" in a neutral country in exchange for "transition back to democracy in Ukraine." Trump could even allow him to keep all of his personal wealth amassed during the past few years in which he has embezzled several hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars from the US bringing him ever closer to his goal of becoming Ukraine’s newest billionaire oligarch as Victoria Spartz (R-IN) has stated he has been hoping to become.
In March, it was reported that President Trump was tiring of Zelensky’s stubborn refusal to lift his ban on negotiating peace with Russia and had dispatched four senior level administration officials to interview Ukrainian opposition leaders who are far more supportive of Trump’s efforts to secure a fair and lasting peace with Russia to find a consensus candidate who the US could support as Zelensky’s replacement. In an article entitled, “Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents,” Politico reported on the Trump administration’s covert attempts to settle on a new Ukrainian opposition leader to replace Zelensky.
“Four senior members of Donald Trump’s entourage have held secret discussions with some of Kyiv’s top political opponents to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just as Washington aligns with Moscow in seeking to lever the Ukrainian president out of his job. The Trump aides are confident that Zelenskyy would lose any vote due to war fatigue and public frustration over rampant corruption. The official line from the U.S. administration is that Trump is not interfering in Ukraine’s domestic politics. This week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick denied his boss was “weighing into Ukrainian politics,” adding all that Trump wants is a partner for peace. But the behavior of Trump and his officials suggests quite the opposite. Trump has accused Zelenskyy of being a “dictator without elections,” and hinted he would not be “around very long” if he didn’t do a deal with Russia.
For days now, Trump cabinet officials have suggested Zelenskyy should step aside unless he comes fully on board with the U.S. plan to end the war rapidly, even if it involves major concessions by Ukraine. On Monday, Trump growled that Zelenskyy “won’t be around very long” if progress isn’t made on a peace deal that satisfies him. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said Washington needed “a leader that can deal with us, eventually deal with the Russians, and end this war.” All of that is prompting Zelenskyy’s domestic political opponents and even some former allies to pay court to Trump World to gain its blessing. “They’re positioning themselves as the best people to work with. And people who would consent to many of the things that Zelensky isn’t consenting to,” the Republican expert said.”
President Trump pictured with former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is reportedly his administration’s top pick to replace Zelensky as President of Ukraine.
I've been saying since my March 2022 article in the National Interest that we should give former Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko a shot to prove her mettle as Ukraine's new President. She would be by far the best choice as she has been prosecuted by both the Zelensky regime and former President Yanukovych so she might represent a good middle ground between the ruling ultranationalist coalition government and the eleven banned pro-peace opposition party factions. Since that time, there have been reports since that former Tymoshenko has emerged as the likely Trump favorite which the US could unite behind to replace Zelensky as Ukraine’s new president to lead Ukraine into a much more bright, peaceful, independent and secure post-war future. Once Zelensky left office and his successor signed and implemented a peace deal with Russia, the US could restore US arms sales to Ukraine.
Kellogg’s Proposal to Carve up Ukraine Like Post-War Berlin
While the US keeps claiming we are fighting for Ukraine’s independence, the Trump administration attempted and failed to pressure Ukraine to give up its economic independence by signing a mineral deal which would have forced Ukraine to surrender control of its natural resources to the United States, effectively making Ukraine a US colony. Not even the Russian Federation has attempted to take away Ukraine’s independence though it may attempt to do so now that the Trump administration has given up on its efforts to negotiate a peaceful diplomatic end to the conflict. Ukraine would arguably more independent under the Russian peace plan than under the ones that the US and NATO have proposed.
London Times map of a divided Ukraine under the Kellogg Plan showing the Western occupation zone on the right bank of the Dnipro River, a Ukrainian controlled zone and a Russian occupation zone along the current frontlines.
Perhaps the most glaring example of that is LTG Keith Kellogg’s proposal to partition of Ukraine resembling post-WWII Berlin, with the UK and France controlling the western zone on the right bank of the Dnipro, Ukraine controlling the left bank of the Dnipro not currently controlled by Russia, Russia keeping all its territory it has annexed, and an 18-mile-wide “demilitarized” buffer zone in between in which he proposed Ukrainian troops would be allowed to enter. The proposal for the creation of such a zone would be fully acceptable to Russia if the 18-mile buffer zone was entirely on the Ukrainian side of the border. In fact, they have expressed support for an even larger “demilitarized zone” bordering on the Russian annexed territories.
Early last month, Ukrainian officials met with UK and France officials to discuss the deployment of UK and French troops and combat aircraft to Ukraine and warships to the Black Sea in furtherance of a Franco-British plan to deploy a “reassurance force” of up to 20,000 troops to Ukraine following a cease-fire. French President Emannuel Macron has stated that such a NATO peacekeeping force could ‘respond’ if attacked by Russia implying that he would be willing to risk World War Three with the world’s mightiest nuclear superpower. However, Russia has repeatedly stated that the insertion of any NATO combat troops into Ukraine would be considered a declaration of war.
George Beebe, who serves as Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft warned that if Britain and France sent troops in Ukraine they would come under immediate and heavy Russian attack as Russia would feel the need to send a strong message to NATO to restore deterrence. Thus, it is quite foreseeable that the execution of Kellogg’s proposed post cease-fire plan could result in full-scale war between Russia and NATO. In February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has warned our NATO partners that the US would not come to their aid if they sent troops to Ukraine, and they were attacked by Russia so such a NATO “coalition of the willing” would have to fight Russia without US support ensuring their rapid defeat.
Kellogg specifically compared his proposal to the Allied decision to carve up control of the German capitol of Berlin following the surrender of Nazi Germany at the end of the Second World War. The Western Allies occupied West Berlin & governed it as a jointly administered de-facto puppet state from 1945-1991 as no West Berlin law could be enacted without the express approval of all three of their American, British and French military overseers. Despite being an official member of NATO for 35 years, West Germany remained a partly or fully militarily occupied power during the entirety of its existence, never being given full sovereignty over its own citizens and territory by the U.S., U.K. and France until the Two Plus Four Treaty went into effect in 1991. Is that truly what Kellogg has in mind for Ukraine?
Kellogg’s suggestion to carve up Ukraine came shortly after a proposal was issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin to place Ukraine under interim UN control until democratic elections could be held to replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who has remained in office a full year past the end of his term in flagrant violation of Article 83 of the Ukrainian constitution. According to a Ukrainian official, Russia offered the West a deal to end the war along the current frontline if the world accepted the land Russia now controls and agreed that Ukraine would not join NATO. As part of the deal, Russia offered to agree to place non-European peacekeepers along the fighting line, preferably from BRICS member states like Brazil, China and India. Surprisingly, Trump opted not to take the deal which means Russia will likely proceed with his plans to begin a massive offensive to collapse Ukraine’s frontlines and knock it out of the war by the end of summer with catastrophic implications for Ukraine.
© David T. Pyne 2025
David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is the former President and current Deputy Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in July 2025. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.
Recent Interviews
April 7th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Iran’s recent underground nuclear tests and Russia’s threat that if Trump bombs Iran’s nuclear arsenal, it will cause an “irreversible global catastrophe”—i.e. World War Three.
April 8th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss why he started a new war with the Houthis, how a US decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites could give China an opportunity to blockade Taiwan as well as why Trump has been unsuccessful in negotiating an end to Biden’s war with Russia in Ukraine.
April 8th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the recent revelation that the second Trump shooter Ryan Routh, who served as a recruiter for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion asked the Ukrainian military to provide him with a Stinger missile to shoot down Trump Force One during the 2024 presidential campaign.
April 9th—Interview on Main Street Radio on the “Dan the Eagle” show to discuss the importance of Trump’s reciprocal tariffs in restoring America’s economic independence from Communist China, reshoring our Defense Industrial Base and preventing the PRC from blackmailing US leaders into doing their bidding.
April 15th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell to discuss the latest developments with regards to Trump’s drive to end the war in Ukraine, his threats to bomb a nuclear-armed Iran and potentially start World War Three and the chances that China will blockade Taiwan in April.
April 17th-Interview with Paul Mills on his Off-Grid Desert Farming Podcast to discuss the latest developments regarding the potential outbreak of World War Three with Russia over Ukraine, with China over Taiwan, and with Iran over its continued nuclear weapons production.
April 17th-Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the recent revelation that JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth succeeding in persuading President Trump to call off plans for a joint US-Israeli air and missile strike on Iranian nuclear missile sites to avert World War Three.
April 21st—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss ongoing attempts to isolate Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth by firing three of his top loyalists on false charges and try to get Trump to fire him for refusing to support a joint US-Israeli military strikes on a nuclear-armed Iran.
April 28th—Interview with Dr. Maria to discuss the latest updates with regards to Trump’s US peace framework to end the war in Ukraine, whether Putin supports it and the ramifications of Zelensky’s continued refusal to make any concessions likely to result in a permanent cut off of all US military aid to Ukraine.
April 28th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s ten-day ultimatum for Zelensky to accept the US peace framework, the likely cause of the power outages in France, Spain and Portugal, Trump’s threats to bomb Iranian nuclear missile sites and the likelihood of China blockading Taiwan later this year.
May 1st—Interview with LTC Sargis Sangari (USA Ret.) to discuss President Trump’s top trade and foreign policy accomplishments during his first 100 days and potential pitfalls for his policies later this year particularly with regards to a potential war with Iran, ending the war in Ukraine, forming a geostrategic partnership with Russia and hopefully avoiding a complete Chinese takeover of Taiwan.
May 2nd—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the Trump administration’s decision to end its attempts to mediate peace between Russia and Ukraine, to sign a minerals deal with Ukraine on Zelensky’s terms and to commit to sell arms to Ukraine for the next decade. We will also discuss Trump’s firing of Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor as well and who he will choose to replace him.
May 5th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss President Trump’s statement that the number of casualties is far greater than what has been reported and the estimates of the Jamestown Center that Ukraine has suffered over two million casualties. We will also discuss Russia’s planned spring/summer offensive and the increasing chances that Trump will bomb Iran.
Upcoming Interviews
May 6th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss President Trump’s announcement of a cease-fire with the Houthis, the Indian missile strikes on Pakistan, the Israeli announcement that they plan to “flatten” and occupy all of Gaza and deport all the Palestinians, Hegseth’s announced retirements of US Army tanks, AFVs, gunships and SP artillery systems and the irrationality of Trump’s planned strikes on Iran.
May 7th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Israel’s plan to permanently occupy all of Gaza and deport 2.3 million Palestinians from their ancestral homeland as well as the signing of Trump’s mineral deal/security pact with Ukraine and his decision to end all US attempts to negotiate peace likely to provoke a massive Russian offensive in Ukraine.
May 7th—Interview with COL Rob Maness (USAF Ret.) on the Rob Maness show to discuss the latest developments regarding Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine with a new US peace framework, the signing of the new US-Ukraine minerals deal, US war plans against Iran, a potential Chinese blockade of Taiwan and the latest Trump cabinet re-shuffle.
May 20th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell to discuss the latest developments with regards to Trump’s drive to end the war in Ukraine, his threats to bomb a nuclear-armed Iran and potentially start World War Three and the chances that China will blockade Taiwan early this fall.
While President Trump deserves credit for initially pledging to end the war in Ukraine and recognizing the strategic folly of indefinite U.S. entanglement, his recent concessions and alignment with hawkish advisors threaten to turn a war he promised to stop into one he owns.
Trump’s instincts to seek peace and pivot U.S. strategy toward confronting China are fundamentally sound. But arming Ukraine without extracting meaningful concessions from Kyiv or Moscow is not peacekeeping; it’s power projection with no off-ramp.
America’s true strategic interest is not defending shifting borders in Eastern Europe, but preventing the formation of a durable Moscow-Beijing axis. That means Washington must decide: does it want to neutralize Russia as a Chinese ally through strategic detente, or drive it deeper into Beijing’s arms with more sanctions, arms shipments, and endless war?
If Trump continues down this path, history won’t remember him as the president who ended Biden’s war. It’ll remember him as the one who inherited it, escalated it, and lost the bigger game.
I still fail to see the reason why Europe wants to continue the war in the Ukraine. Can't they see that Russia already has won the war ?