Trump Issues Ultimatum to Zelensky to Accept US Peace Framework, Suggesting Russia Has Already Accepted It
Zelensky rejects Trump's pro-Ukraine seven-point peace proposal causing the Trump administration to threaten to pull all support and withdraw all personnel from Ukraine.
President Donald Trump meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Rome on April 26, issuing him an ultimatum to accept the US Peace Framework including recognizing Russia’s territorial gains within ten days or else the US will end its involvement in the war and leave Ukraine to fight Russia without US assistance.
May 18th update—The 22 point Kellogg peace plan has now been released. In addition to the seven points listed below, it also contains numerous provisions that are unacceptable to Russia including no restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces and no limits on the capabilities of its offensive strike systems. In addition, it mandates Russia provide hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations for Ukraine, the transfer of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to US control and the return of alleged Russian-held Ukrainian civilians and children which Russia never took and is thus unable to return. Steve Witkoff reportedly planned to travel to Moscow from May 12-16th to present this US peace plan to Russian President Vladimir Putin but Russia informed Witkoff that Putin was unwilling to discuss the plan because it did not meet Russia’s minimum requirements for a final peace settlement. Trump is planning a phone call with Putin on May 19th likely for the purpose of discussing this peace plan with him despite the fact that Russia reportedly rejected it over a week ago.
May 3rd update—It appears that Trump gave Zelensky an ultimatum not to accept the US peace framework, but rather to sign the minerals agreement which Zelensky did on April 30th, but on his own terms, not Trump’s. There appears to have been a quid pro quo between Trump and Zelensky that if Ukraine signed the minerals deal, the US would increase arms shipments to Ukraine and commit to continue providing arms to Ukraine to help it continue to fight Biden’s war against Russia indefinitely.
President Donald Trump was elected to office on a promise of ending the war in Ukraine within twenty-four hours. Shortly after his electoral college landslide victory, he tempered expectations by revising the timeline for achieving a fair and lasting peace agreement to 100 days. Yesterday marked the 100th day of President Donald Trump’s second term and, unfortunately, we still seem a long way away from negotiating an end to what Trump has described as a “senseless an unnecessary war.” Trump has rightly stated that the war in Ukraine would have never happened had his 2020 election victory not been stolen from him and that he is just trying to put out the fire that President Joe Biden started. Biden deliberately provoked Russia to invade Ukraine by refusing Putin’s December 7, 2021 offer not to invade Ukraine in exchange for a written guarantee from the US that Ukraine would never be allowed to join NATO, declaring that the US did not recognize any of Russia’s redlines.
On April 14th, President Trump stated, “The War between Russia and Ukraine is Biden’s war, not mine. I just got here, and for four years during my term, had no problem in preventing it from happening,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, and everyone else, respected your President!” Trump also blamed President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for “allowing this travesty to begin.” “There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting. But that is the past. Now we have to get it to STOP, AND FAST,” Trump added.
President Trump’s sincere efforts to end the war have been both courageous and noble, based both on a desire to prevent that outbreak of World War Three and to save as many Ukrainian and Russian lives as possible from perishing in this tragic conflict. As Trump has noted, both Biden and Zelensky unnecessarily prolonged the war when they rejected the Istanbul Agreement which was scheduled to be signed on April 9, 2022 and would have entailed a full Russian military withdrawal from 100 percent of Ukraine’s prewar territory in return for permanent Ukrainian neutrality outside of NATO and partial Ukrainian disarmament.
Since August, I have been calling on the Trump administration to begin negotiating the specific terms of a peace agreement minimally acceptable to Russia as soon as President Trump was inaugurated and now, it appears it is attempting to do exactly that. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov informed Secretary of State Marco Rubio at their meeting in Riyadh on February 18th that Russia would only agree to the US request for a 30-day cease-fire if substantial agreement had been reached on the main points of a peace framework ending the war by the US, Russia and by implication, Ukraine.
Witkoff reported that during his third meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 11th in St. Petersburg, Russia finally informed him of its minimum requirements for agreeing to a full cease-fire. Subsequently, on April 22nd, the Financial Times reported that during his meeting with Witkoff, Putin made a huge concession to give up his demand for 3.6% of additional Ukrainian territory that Russia does not currently control and agree to peace along the current frontlines in exchange for the US accepting Russia’s other main peace terms in an attempt to reach a negotiated compromise agreement with the US.
“Vladimir Putin has offered to halt his invasion of Ukraine at the current front line as part of efforts to reach a peace deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. The Russian president told Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, during a meeting in St Petersburg earlier this month that Moscow could relinquish its claims to areas of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions that remain under Kyiv’s control, three of the people said.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly used this unprecedented Russian concession as the basis to share the first ever US peace framework for ending the war in Ukraine with the British, French, German and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers at a meeting in Paris on April 18th. LTC Daniel Davis has reported that the US delegation led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively presented an ultimatum to Ukraine and the European Union to agree to a US proposed peace framework or else the US will pull out of Ukraine and cut off all support for Kyiv. Rubio stated that the Russians were informed of the details of the US peace framework. He also said that the British, French and Germans were supportive, but that Ukraine continues to refuse to agree to any territorial concessions to Russia not even Crimea which Russia annexed over a decade ago. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister left the meeting citing Ukraine’s ongoing opposition to recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its continued de-facto control of parts of four additional Ukrainian regions. Thus far, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has given no indication that he is willing to make even the slightest concession to his maximalist demands for peace. That's what caused Rubio to say we are days away from Trump giving up on Ukraine.
The New York Times reported on Rubio’s comments:
During the talks, a “broad framework” for peace, in effect an American plan, was presented to Ukraine. “It’s a framework that gets us into a position to see — look, there are going to be differences; there’s no — no one’s saying this can be done in 12 hours,” Mr. Rubio said. He declined to give any further details of the proposal. “It is not our war. We didn’t start it,” Mr. Rubio said. “The United States has been helping Ukraine for the past three years and we want it to end, but it’s not our war.” He added: “If it’s not possible — if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen — then I think the president’s probably at a point where he’s going to say, well, we’re done. We’ll do what we can on the margins.” He described Mr. Trump as feeling “very strongly” about this.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press declaring that if Russia and Ukraine do not agree to the US Peace Framework, the US could end its efforts to mediate a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine.
In a dramatic statement early this morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Donald Trump would give it a few more days to see if progress could be made on getting a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, if not, he will "move on." "We're not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end. So we need to determine very quickly now, and I'm talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks," Rubio said Friday in Paris after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders "If it's not possible, if we're so far apart that this is not going to happen, then I think the president is probably at a point where he's going to say, 'well, we're done'," Rubio told reporters. Both Ukraine and Russia appear locked into maximalist demands.
Trump’s Seven Point Peace Framework to End the War in Ukraine
The London Telegraph has reported on the specific provisions of Trump’s Seven Point Peace Framework to end the war in Ukraine. While President Trump is being accused of supporting a plan with terms against Ukraine's interests, the truth is that the plan is far more favorable to Ukraine than the peace terms Russia has been demanding since September 2022. Here are the specific terms of the US peace framework which I have compiled from multiple sources including Axios, Reuters and the London Telegraph:
1. Both Russia and Ukraine shall implement an immediate, permanent cease-fire and will immediately engage in technical implementation negotiations.
2. Direct Peace talks between Ukraine and Russia will be held to negotiate a final comprehensive peace agreement.
3. Ukraine agrees to drop its bid for NATO membership. In return, Ukraine can join the European Union (EU) which shall provide it a robust security guarantee along with willing non-European states. The EU shall also provide Ukraine with reconstruction assistance, the costs of which shall be partially funded by tariffs on Russian gas exports.
4. Ukraine will withdraw all of its remaining troops from the small amount of territory it controls in Kursk (and presumably Belgorod) in return for Russia returning the territory it occupies in Kharkiv oblast. The US will recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and de facto Russian control over the four annexed regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson along the current line of control.
5. The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and the Kakhovka Dam (which was destroyed by Ukraine two days after the commencement of their summer 2023 counteroffensive) will be returned to Ukrainian control but the Zaporizhia plant shall be operated by the US which shall supply electricity to both Russia and Ukraine. Russia will allow Ukraine unhindered passage along the Dnipro River which runs along the frontline in the Kherson and western Zaporizhia regions along with control of the Kinburn Spit (presumably including the entire remaining Russian-occupied area of Mykolaiv oblast).
6. Ukraine will sign the minerals deal with the US giving it control of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and other natural resources.
7. All US economic sanctions imposed since 2014 will be lifted if Russia continues to honor the cease-fire. The US and Russia will greatly increase economic cooperation on energy and industrial sectors.
It has also been reported that the Trump administration is proposing that European peacekeepers would be deployed on the Ukrainian side of the border and non-European (BRICS) peacekeepers would be deployed along the Russian side of the border to enforce a cease-fire but that would be a matter of further negotiation.
The Kellogg Peace Plan Revisited
The Trump Administration’s Russia-Ukraine Peace Framework is largely based on the Kellogg Plan which was first shared with Trump by Lt. General Keith Kellogg (USA Ret.) and Fred Fleitz, former Chief of Staff to National Security Advisor John Bolton, back in June and subsequently adopted by then President-Elect Trump in November. Their peace proposal did have a few good elements to it, most notably that the US should suspend all military aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky agrees to a permanent cease fire and immediate peace talks with Russia. President Trump adopted the Kellogg Plan as his own in late November even though Russia declared its opposition to some elements of the plan particularly the ideas of sending tens of thousands of NATO peacekeepers to Ukraine and refusing to cap the size or capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces. The only meaningful difference is that while the initial Kellogg peace plan called for a 20-year moratorium on Ukrainian NATO membership, the Trump plan which was announced piecemeal beginning in February at the Munich Security Conference calls for Ukraine to renounce Ukrainian NATO membership. Most of the points in Trump's seven-point peace plan are merely a recognition of reality in that Ukraine has zero chance of defeating Russia, joining NATO or liberating any of its lost territories.
President Donald Trump and Lt. General Keith Kellogg (USA-Ret.) in the White House on the last day of his brief, little-known, one-week tenure as Acting National Security Advisor during Trump’s first term.
Back in November, I noted that Trump's decision to appoint Kellogg as his Special Envoy to Russia and Ukraine indicated to me that the President-Elect intended to utilize the Kellogg armistice proposal as his opening peace proposal to Russia rather than Vice President-Elect JD Vance's far superior peace proposal that had a much greater chance of being accepted by the Kremlin. At that time, I warned that this decision showed that “while Trump remains committed to his pledge to end the war in Ukraine, it may take months instead of days to negotiate a peace agreement until he accepts terms that are minimally acceptable to the Russian Federation.”
I noted that “the Kellogg plan's main fault is that it doesn't include any incentives for Ukraine to agree to a peace agreement as it envisions the US continuing massive arms shipments to Ukraine which would be entirely unacceptable to Russia given it has demanded that any peace plan must include Ukraine's partial demilitarization. The Kellogg proposal gives zero incentives to Ukraine to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia. I don't think there will be a final peace agreement unless Trump pressures Kellogg to agree to accept peace terms acceptable to Russia. Furthermore, including Ukraine in the negotiations will only serve to prolong the negotiations indefinitely with a high likelihood of Russia resuming the war if Trump continued shipping large amounts of weapons to Ukraine as proposed under the Kellogg plan.” I also warned back in November that “any attempt to get Russia to agree to a full cease-fire without some concessions from Ukraine would be guaranteed to fail.” I concluded by stating that “it is very possible that a continued pursuit of the Kellogg peace plan by the Trump administration will become a self-fulfilling prophesy and prolong the war by several months unnecessarily costing the lives of tens of thousands more brave Ukrainians.”
The specific terms of the US proposal largely line up with a reported Trump 100-day peace plan I previously reported on that was leaked in late January. The main differences are that the leaked plan did not include US ownership of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, nor did it include the proposed US Ukraine rare-earth minerals deal. According to the leaked Trump 100-day peace plan, Trump was supposed to meet with Putin by early March to discuss the main parameters of a peace plan but obviously that didn’t happen. By April 20th, a cease-fire would be announced along the entire front followed by a withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region. At the end of April, an international peace conference would be convened where the US and China would join with countries in Europe and the Global South powers to mediate a formal peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia to end the war while there would be an exchange of all prisoners of war held by Russia and Ukraine. By May 9th, the international peace conference would announce a formal end to the war while Ukraine will end martial law and military mobilization. Ukraine would hold a presidential election at the end of August. Based on this timeline, its clear why President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary Rubio are all warning that their patience is running thin because the US timeline for getting both parties to agree to an end to the fighting has run out.
The leaked peace plan called for Zelensky to lift his decree banning peace negotiations with Russia. Ukraine would not seek the return of the territories that were annexed by Russia and will declare its permanent neutrality outside of NATO. Ukraine would become a member of the European Union by 2030 which would be responsible for funding Ukrainian reconstruction. Ukrainian political parties that represent the country’s Russian minority and support peace with Russia would be allowed to participate in parliamentary elections and all persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Ukrainian government would cease. The number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine would remain at current levels and the US will modernize the Ukrainian Army. After the conclusion of the peace agreement, some sanctions against Russia would be lifted including restrictions on the import of Russian energy resources to the EU.
The US terms suggest that Trump administration officials realize that the US has comparatively little interest concerning what the specific terms of a peace agreement end up being with regards to the size of the Ukrainian military, the postwar borders of Ukraine or whether it ever joins NATO. They now seem to understand that the only vital national security interest the US has in Ukraine is ending the war as soon as possible to stop its continuing destruction, halt the weakening of the US and its allies and the strengthening of the Sino-Russian military alliance which the war has entailed and most importantly end the ongoing threat of Russian nuclear escalation. The two most important improvements from the previously leaked Kellogg peace plan, which contained a number of unrealistic provisions, are that Ukraine would have to give up NATO membership and accept permanent neutrality and that the proposal for NATO peacekeepers to patrol a DMZ separating Russia and Ukraine would be postponed for discussion after the peace agreement has been signed in recognition of the fact that Russia would never accept them.
Can Russia Accept the US Peace Framework?
According to some reports, Russia has largely accepted this US peace framework with a couple of notable exceptions. On April 23rd, Trump declared from the Oval Office, “I think we have a deal with Russia. We have to get a deal with Zelensky. I thought it would be easier to deal with Zelensky. So far its been hard.” The president’s statement suggests that Putin likely approved most of the main points of the US peace framework in advance during his April 11th meeting with Witkoff. However, the Trump administration has stated that its proposed peace framework is not a final comprehensive peace agreement. President Trump has since confirmed Russian acceptance of the US peace framework during an interview last week with Glenn Beck putting the onus on Zelensky to decide whether he wants a fair peace for Ukraine or whether he wants to continue losing his war against Russia until Ukraine’s military collapses and most of its territory has been overrun by Russian forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg on April 11th where he reportedly agreed to drop Russia’s demand for any additional Ukrainian territory in exchange for US acceptance of Russia’s other main peace terms.
While Putin has agreed to give up Russia’s demands for an additional 3.6% of Ukraine's territory which had been the biggest point of contention with the US, Trump's peace framework leaves out a few other key Russian demands, which Russia would undoubtedly insist be addressed as part of any final peace settlement. The biggest omission in the US peace framework is that it does not accept any of the mostly reasonable Russian demanded limitations on the size or capabilities of the Ukrainian armed forces agreed to by both sides under the Istanbul Agreement on March 29, 2022. Nor does it call for the removal of NATO personnel from Ukraine potentially leaving Ukraine as a heavily armed de facto NATO member state with NATO troops in western and central Ukraine all the way to the Dnipro River. Such a withdrawal would be mandatory if Ukraine rescinded its 2019 constitutional amendment which removed the restriction on foreign troops and bases in Ukraine as was agreed to under the Istanbul Agreement.
There is no way that Russia will sign any peace agreement that does not address these demands and if we were able to compel it to do so which we obviously cannot, it would only serve to ensure Russia restarts the war in Ukraine in the very near future. The only way to guarantee Russia never invades Ukraine again is to ensure its minimum demands are satisfied. Russia will never agree to give up any territory it controls within the five oblasts (except as part of a territorial exchange with Ukraine). It will only agree to give up control of the territory it controls in Sumy, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. Some reports suggest Russia would have to give up a border strip along the Dnipro River as part of Trump's peace proposal but that is not the case. On April 27th, during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressly rejected the US proposal for US control of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant saying it will remain under Russian control indefinitely. In addition, Russia will never agree to any NATO troops entering Ukraine saying it would consider such action “an act of war.” Russia has also demanded the implementation of enforcement mechanisms be part of any legally binding peace agreement with Ukraine to ensure that Ukraine does not violate the terms of the agreement.
There are some popular misconceptions with regards to Biden’s war against Russia in Ukraine which are causing neoconservatives to believe that the US does not need to accept most of Russia’s requested peace terms. The biggest misconception is that because Russia has captured very little Ukrainian territory since Putin ordered a unilateral Russian military withdrawal from over thirty percent of Russian-occupied territory from March 26-April 4th, 2022, in anticipation of the signing of the Istanbul Agreement on April 9th, that means it doesn’t have the ability to seize large swaths of additional Ukrainian territory. However, that assumption is mistaken. Russia absolutely has the military capability to conquer most, and perhaps even, all of Ukraine if it wanted to.
Rather, Russia has employed a dual strategy of trying to end the war diplomatically with the peace terms agreed to by both sides in the Istanbul Agreement and recognition of Russia’s annexation of the four formerly Ukrainian oblasts while also focusing on using their supremacy in airpower, artillery and missiles to “demilitarize” and decimate the Ukrainian armed forces. This has demonstrated that Russia’s objective in invading Ukraine has always been about eliminating the perceived existential threat of NATO expansion into Ukraine along with a heavily armed Ukrainian military not about annexing territory. This strategy has proven enormously successful to date as Russia’s military casualties most likely total 300,000 while Ukraine's have been closer to 1.2 million including 500,000 dead. Accordingly, the US and Ukraine have little alternative but to agree to most of Russia’s requested peace terms to prevent further Ukrainian troop and territorial losses.
On April 26th, Russia announced that it finished liberating the last Russian settlement in the Kursk region from Ukrainian occupation last week leaving Ukrainian troops in control of a few empty fields along the border between Kursk and Ukraine’s Sumy region and thanked North Korea for sending thousands of troops to assist in their Kursk counteroffensive. On Monday, Putin announced a three-day ceasefire in Ukraine from midnight on May 8th to midnight on May 11th to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II coinciding with Russia's Victory Day celebrations. However, Ukraine seems highly unlikely to accept Russia’s temporary ceasefire offer.
Trump Gives Zelensky an Ultimatum to Accept US Peace Framework
The proposed US peace framework is far more favorable to Ukraine than the terms Russia has been demanding and it is clear that it has the most to gain from accepting this peace agreement. It would lose nothing by agreeing to the terms of the Trump peace framework because NATO has never been on the table for Ukraine, not even during the Biden administration, and Ukraine’s failed 2023 counteroffensive proved it has no ability to retake any of its lost territories from Russia by military means, a fact that Zelensky himself has admitted in the past. In fact, the only provision that would represent a setback for Ukraine from its current situation in this agreement would be their acceptance of the rare-earth minerals deal with the US.
The Trump administration announced it was downgrading a meeting with America’s NATO partners and Ukraine on April 21st held in London to discuss a peace framework to end the war in Ukraine because all of the other participants had effectively rejected the US peace framework with the EU proposing its own peace framework which was completely unrealistic and unachievable all but ensuring a continuation of the war until Ukraine was defeated on the battlefield. Secretary Rubio announced he would skip the summit in protest over Ukraine’s refusal to agree to even the most minimal concessions to achieve peace with Russia.
On April 23rd, Vice President JD Vance stated that the U.S. had presented a "very explicit proposal" to Russia and Ukraine, repeating warnings Washington might drop its peace effort if the belligerent sides refuse. Talking to journalists during a visit to India, Vance said that it is time for Kyiv and Moscow "to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process." Vance noted that Ukraine’s postwar borders might not exactly follow the current front line saying both sides would have to give up some of the territory they control with Ukraine giving up territory in Russia’s Kursk region and Russia giving up territory in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. In addition, Russia might be willing to engage in additional territorial exchanges with Ukraine most likely ceding territory in Sumy, Zaporizhia and Kherson for a greater amount of territory in western Donetsk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looking dejected, perhaps realizing he has sacrificed the lives of half a million brave Ukrainian soldiers for nothing and regretting his decision to reject Russia’s generous peace terms in the March 2022 Istanbul Agreement. At that time, Russia reportedly agreed to a full withdrawal of all Russian troops to their prewar borders in exchange for neutrality and partial demilitarization for Ukraine.
The US has announced this peace framework to be its ‘best and final offer’ as the basis for negotiations for a final peace agreement, and has threatened to exit the negotiations process altogether if not accepted by all the parties including Russia, Ukraine and our EU partners. This week, the Trump administration will decide whether it wants to continue its involvement in negotiating an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an April 27th appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. Speaking on the negotiations, he added, “we’re close, but we’re not close enough.”
President Trump met with Zelensky one on one in Rome on April 26th for the first time since his dust up with Zelensky in the Oval Office on February 28th and, according to Ukrainian sources reported by LTC Daniel Davis on his Daniel Davis Deep Dive program, told Zelensky that if he didn’t agree to the US peace framework within ten days, the US would pull out of Ukraine and let it fight Russia alone. That would mean that May 6th is Trump’s deadline for an answer. That deadline syncs up pretty closely with the one that was reported to be Trump’s leaked 100-day peace plan which set May 9th as the deadline by which a final peace agreement would be signed.
However, Zelensky has refused to accept the US peace framework on the pretext that it is against Ukraine’s constitution to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea while President Trump replied that no one is asking Ukraine to recognize its annexation. In response to Zelensky's refusal to agree to the US peace framework, Trump should immediately suspend all US military aid and offensive intelligence to Ukraine and pull all US personnel from Ukraine while declaring it remains open to resuming defensive arms sales as soon as Zelensky leaves office.
Pulling out of Ukraine Would Be in the US National Security Interest
On April 18th and since, Secretary Rubio has reportedly warned Ukraine that if it did not agree to the US peace framework, the US would walk away from peace efforts and implied it would pull all US personnel out of Ukraine and cease all active US support for Ukraine’s war effort including military and offensive intelligence support as it did briefly back last month and let them continue to fight Russia on their own. This US peace framework represents the first US peace offer since the war began and should not be our last. President Trump would be well served to utilize my latest peace proposal as a template to swiftly end the war in Ukraine on terms beneficial to all parties involved in the conflict to achieve a fair, lasting and durable peace. Under my proposed peace terms, Ukraine would only have to engage in a 28.5% troop reduction from 350,000 active-duty troops to 250,000 troops as 150,000 of their current troops could be reformed as Border Guards units.
The key to achieving peace in Ukraine is to combine the US peace framework with the terms of the Istanbul Agreement agreed to by both Russian and Ukrainian negotiators on March 29, 2022. That agreement included a number of Russian demands relating to partial Ukrainian disarmament, changing the Ukrainian constitution back to the pre-2019 constitution banning Ukraine from joining any military alliance or hosting any foreign troops or bases and banning Ukrainian ultranationalists parties in the Ukrainian government or militia groups in the Ukrainian military. It’s important to note that Trump doesn't need Ukraine’s or the EU’s approval to negotiate a peace framework with Russia. He can and should negotiating the best possible troop, weapon and range limits for Ukraine acceptable to Moscow and then pressure Zelensky to accept and implement the final peace agreement by threatening to cut off Ukraine’s Starlink access without which as Elon Musk has noted would cause their front to collapse. It would be a shame, although quite understandable, if President Trump decided to give up on a historic peace deal.
The primary focus of Russia’s demand for “denazification” of Ukraine is restoring democracy to Ukraine including the holding of democratic elections for President, the lifting of martial law and the restoration of the 64 Duma members to the Ukrainian Rada who were members of eleven Ukrainian opposition parties that were banned by Zelensky in March 2022. President Trump appears to be fully on board with this Russian proposal even going so far as to send four senior administration officials to interview leading opposition figures to decide who the US should support to replace Zelensky. Both Trump and Russia are demanding Zelensky hold a democratic election, but he is refusing to do so knowing that if he does he would be sure to lose an election given the polls are showing him with no more than sixteen percent popular support currently. Zelensky appears perfectly happy to continue sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian troops in an unwinnable war against Russia so he doesn't have to end martial law and give up his dictatorial hold on power and can continue to pursue his dream to become a billionaire oligarch in the words of Ukrainian-American Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN).
While it would be better if the US was successful in negotiating the terms of a bilateral peace deal with Moscow and then presented the deal to Ukraine for signature and applying pressure on Zelensky to accept it, US national security interests would be well served if the US pulled all its personnel and assistance from Ukraine, given that it was never in the US interest to get involved in the war or send any weapons to Ukraine in the first place. Continued US involvement in the war in Ukraine is a drain on increasingly limited military resources and increases the chances of provoking Russia to attack the US and its allies making us much less safe and secure. The truth is that the US has gained absolutely nothing from its proxy war on Russia in Ukraine that has made the US militarily weaker by disarming it of huge quantities of its advanced weapons and munitions that will take several years to replenish. Biden’s war on Ukraine has also served to make Russia much stronger militarily, helped to increase the size of Russia’s economy from the fourth largest by PPP to the fourth largest, and pushed it into an even closer military alliance with America’s Communist Chinese enemy at a time the US should be doing everything it can to drive them apart.
Pulling out all US personnel from Ukraine and ending all military assistance to Kyiv would remove the biggest obstacle to achieving President Trump’s brilliant plan for a new geostrategic partnership between the US and Russia to neutralize its military alliance with the PRC. Trump has already been able to make some meaningful progress on that front by normalizing diplomatic ties with Russia, conceding that Russia invaded Ukraine to expel NATO from its territory and reducing US participation and funding for NATO. Now, he just needs to normalize economic and trade ties with Russia and massively expand bilateral economic cooperation, suspending US military support for Ukraine and negotiate a strategic framework agreement along the lines I have recommended to woo them away from dependence on the PRC.
The Trump administration has wisely given some indications that if it deems Zelensky to be principally to blame for torpedoing peace negotiations with Russia, it may proceed with the lifting of US economic sanctions on Russia and a new US-Russia geostrategic partnership including working together to solve other international disputes as well as greatly increased economic cooperation on energy and industrial issues even if the war continues unabated.
Biden’s war in Ukraine has pushed Russia into an even closer alliance with Communist China but President Trump could and should act to neutralize their military alliance by forming a grand geostrategic partnership for peace with Moscow after he ends all US involvement in the conflict.
Russia is also demanding security guarantees from NATO be part of any peace agreement. These guarantees are the same ones in their draft security agreements which they provided to the US and NATO in December 2021, which Trump could offer to sign in exchange for Russia agreeing to many Ukraine requested limits in terms of the size and weaponry (but not ranges) permitted for Ukraine’s postwar military. Even if he gives up on negotiating a peace deal with Russia and Ukraine ending the war, President Trump should still negotiate the Strategic Framework Agreement below with Moscow and lift all US economic sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014 to transform it from an adversary into a strategic partner to neutralize its military alliance with the PRC. If peace talks were to falter, the only change to the terms below would be the removal of the requirement for Russia to reduce the number of its troops in the annexed territories down to 250,000.
US-Russia Strategic Framework Agreement
1. The U.S. guarantees that NATO will never expand eastward. All U.S. economic sanctions against Russia enacted from 2014 onward shall be rescinded and the US will encourage its allies to do the same. All seized public and private Russian financial and economic assets shall be fully restored to their Russian owners. In addition, the US will encourage its allies not to recognize or attempt to enforce the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against the President of the Russian Federation.
2. In return for a withdrawal of all Russian troops from Belarus and a reduction of Russian troops in its recently annexed territories to 250,000, all 20,000 U.S. troops shall be withdrawn from those nations in Europe that were not part of NATO prior to 1999 and the overall number of U.S. troops in Europe shall be reduced to their 2021 level. The U.S. will encourage its western European allies and Canada to withdraw their troops from those nations as well. The U.S. and Russia shall refrain from flying heavy bombers or deploying major surface combatants within two-hundred miles of the other’s territory, except for the Bering Strait.
3. In exchange for Russia removing all its air and land-based nuclear weapons from Kaliningrad, Belarus and all territories previously controlled by Ukraine, the U.S. will redeploy all one hundred and fifty of its B-61 nuclear gravity bombs from Western Europe to its aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific. The U.S. and Russia agree to begin negotiating a New START II Treaty with a limit of 3,500 operational strategic nuclear weapons.
4. In return for Russia committing not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere or in NATO member states, the U.S. commits to a policy of non-interference in all former Soviet republics which are not NATO members. The U.S. and Russia solemnly pledge that neither side will go to war against the other in the event they are attacked by a third party.
Conclusion
Ukraine succeeded in liberating over 30% of its Russian-occupied territory by diplomacy with the partial implementation of the Istanbul Agreement by Russia before which Russia was in control of twenty-seven percent of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory. However, Zelensky has since squandered the lives of approximately half a million Ukrainian troops to liberate a net total of just 423 square miles of its Russian occupied territory by military action by unnecessarily prolonging the war by over three years and counting. That equates to a shocking cost of 1,182 Ukrainian soldiers killed in action per every square mile liberated from Russian control in what has become a World War One-style battle of attrition which Russia has been winning by inflicting an average of four times as many casualties on Ukraine for every one suffered by Russia. Ukrainian troops are currently outnumbered by five to one by Russian troops along most of the Eastern Front and even if Trump decides not to pull the plug on US support to Ukraine, it will likely suffer a military collapse later this year enabling Russian troops to advance all across the Dnipro River and occupy nearly half of Ukraine. Might it be time for Zelensky to give diplomacy a chance again to save another generation of Ukrainian men from being decimated?
© 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
March 31st—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the leak of the DoD guidance memo saying NATO can not expect the US to defend them, ending all war planning to fight Russia at a time the Trump administration is surging US troops and even US nukes to NATO’s eastern border to threaten Russia.
April 2nd—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss whether China’s Joint Exercise Strait Thunder-2025A is a prelude to a full blockade of Taiwan and whether China would benefit from a Trump decision to start a new war against Iran and bomb Iranian nuclear sites.
April 4th—I will be giving a ninety minute presentation at the Highland Community Center at 5378 West 10400 North in Highland, Utah at 7pm followed by a 30-minute question and answer session. It will include all my latest US national security and foreign policy updates especially Trump’s chances of negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
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.
Upcoming Interviews
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 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.
What effect do you see the minerals deal having? I see it as a de facto security guarantee. It’s will be US boots in the ground, but miner’s boots rather than soldier’s boots. They become a red line Putin shouldn’t mess with. American might turn a blind eye to Ukrainians getting attacked, but not so much
with US blue collar workers.
Always appreciate your updates on Substack and your interviews on Brannon Howse Live keeping us “in the know” about what is really going on.
Thank you !!!