Trump Should Implement the Witkoff Proposal to Achieve Peace with Russia by the End of April

The US should negotiate the best possible peace deal for Ukraine in bilateral negotiations with Moscow and then present it to Ukraine for approval to end Biden's senseless and unnecessary war.

Trump Special Envoy met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg for five hours on April 11th. Following the meeting, he stated it had been very productive because Russian officials told him for the first time exactly the terms they would need for Russia to accept a full cease-fire. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a US peace framework with NATO and Ukrainian leaders on April 18th likely including many of the Russian conditions provided to Witkoff.

April 24th Update: Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to give up Russia’s demand for additional Ukrainian territory it does not currently control, offering peace along the current line of control in exchange for US acceptance of Russia’s other demands such as a guarantee Ukraine will never join NATO and a full withdrawal of all NATO personnel. Accordingly, I have updated my peace proposal to revise it to be more favorable to Ukraine.

During his presidential campaign, President Donald Trump pledged to end the war in Ukraine within twenty-four hours to “avert World War Three” with Russia. Following his inauguration, Trump has stated that it would take closer to six months to finalize a peace agreement while his administration set a goal of achieving peace within one-hundred days by the end of April May. Within days of him taking office, a leaked timeline purporting to be the administration’s 100 day peace plan provided a timeline for how it plans to achieve that noble objective set the end of April as the deadline for a permanent cease-fire and May 9^th as the date by which a final peace agreement ending the war in Ukraine would be signed. Trump has declared that his signature foreign policy initiative and bold and visionary plan is not merely to negotiate a compromise peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine in which the US accepts most of Russia’s proposed peace terms to save Ukraine from further death and destruction and prevent the outbreak of World War Three that would likely quickly escalate to the nuclear level.

He has also indicated he also seeks to normalize US relations with Moscow in accordance with US national security interests and use a peace deal to forge a new US grand strategic partnership for peace with Russia, which I have long advocated. Such an expansive geopolitical realignment which could very well succeed in neutralizing Russia’s military alliance with the PRC thus revolutionizing the strategic balance of power in America’s favor. I could not be any more impressed with the overall brilliance of Trump’s plan in this regard or with his courageousness in withstanding pressure from the globalists in and out of his administration to abandon it.

As President Trump has rightly stated, “Russia holds most of the cards.” It has five times more people than Ukraine and its efforts to recruit hundreds of thousands of volunteers to serve in the Russian army continue to be successful. Russia also enjoys increasing military superiority over Ukraine in terms of artillery, airpower and missiles while it’s heavy weapons and ammunition production is reportedly four times greater than all of NATO combined. It will soon boast the second largest active-duty military with a nuclear arsenal almost three times greater than the US in terms of strategic warheads with fifty times more non-strategic warheads according to a recently leaked Ukrainian Ministry of Defense report.

In a recent interview with former Fox News host Megan Kelley in February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted that Ukraine has lost the war and is being destroyed, running out of troops to fight the war and losing more and more territory. That is why Rubio stated that the war needs to end and both sides need to give something up to reach a peace deal. Accordingly, the US ability to negotiate favorable peace terms for Ukraine is limited by the fact that Russia is winning the war and Ukraine is facing a potential military collapse by year’s end due to their inability to replace their manpower losses. The result is that the size of the Ukrainian armed forces is continuing to shrink in the face of increasing Russian military superiority giving Russia a two-to-one advantage in terms of the numbers of Russian troops in Ukraine and a five-to-one advantage along most parts of the Eastern Front. If Trump’s efforts to end the war with a diplomatic peace agreement prove unsuccessful, Russia’s military victory will be guaranteed with Ukrainian territorial losses likely far in excess of what it has suffered thus far.

Employing the Finland model for Post-War Ukraine

Ultimately, the best solution for ending the war in Ukraine and ensuring a permanent end to the underlying reasons for the conflict as Putin has stated Russia is seeking is to employ the Cold War ‘Finland model’ of ‘armed neutrality’ for Ukraine which would guarantee its independence but would also ensure Ukraine refrained from any hostility towards Moscow and commit to never join NATO. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wisely called for the “Finlandization of Ukraine” in an op-ed he published in the Washington Post in March 2014 entitled “How the Ukraine Crisis Ends.”

“Internationally, they should pursue a posture comparable to that of Finland. That nation leaves no doubt about its fierce independence and cooperates with the West in most fields but carefully avoids institutional hostility toward Russia,” Kissinger had written.

"Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them," he continued. "Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States."

"The west is largely Catholic; the east largely Russian Orthodox. The west speaks Ukrainian; the east speaks mostly Russian. Any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other — as has been the pattern — would lead eventually to civil war or break up. To treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West — especially Russia and Europe — into a cooperative international system," Kissinger wrote.

Kissinger was nearly prophetic in predicting that if the West sought to bring Ukraine into NATO, it would either spark a Ukrainian civil war which had just begun in the Donbass region following the CIA backed Maidan coup that overthrew democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych or else a partition of Ukraine. He also warned that our insistence in including Ukraine in NATO would deal a death blow to more prudent Western efforts to fully incorporate the Russian Federation into a peaceful, cooperative and mutually beneficial international order—ironically one of the top Russian foreign policy objectives of the postwar era and one that Russia still retains three years into NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine.

Just before the war started, French President Emannuel Macron stated that the Finlandization was “one of the models on the table” being considered for Ukraine to avert the outbreak of war. Indeed, the Finnish model of Cold-War neutrality outside of either the Western led or Soviet-led military blocs was cited by Russia as a model used in the Istanbul Agreement, the terms of which Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated should be incorporated into any final peace settlement.

Like Ukraine, Finland ended up losing a significant amount of its territory after being defeated in a war with Russia before it was offered the option of a mutual security agreement in 1948 that lasted until 1992 that ensured its independence so long as it did not align itself militarily with the Western Powers. Doing so ensured its freedom and sovereignty from Russia for nearly half a century and enabled it to become one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Much like Switzerland, the Finns took advantage of their military non-alignment to build a small active-duty military force (24,000 today) but a huge force of army reservists totaling 850,000 military servicemen.

While some may argue that Finlandization would not be acceptable for Ukraine because it would take away their freedom to join NATO, it could be credibly argued that Ukraine was already Finlandized between 1991 and 2014 when it committed to be a permanently neutral country and had a Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership virtually identical to the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance Finland signed with the Soviets in 1948. During that period of time, it controlled 100 percent of its internationally recognized territory and was never attacked by Russia. If you were to ask Ukrainians if life was better off for them living under the Finland model during this period or now with Ukraine as a NATO aspirant, I would guess that they would respond by saying life was much better off before Ukraine began the process of trying to join NATO.

The Russians essentially offered Ukraine peace along the Finland model under the terms of the Istanbul Agreement, but President Joe Biden dispatched British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Kyiv on April 8, 2022 to pressure Zelensky not to attend the signing ceremony scheduled for the following day. Under the Istanbul Agreement, just like Cold War Finland, Ukraine would be free to choose its own domestic political and economic system and be free to associate itself with Western Europe economically and politically (including as a member of the European Union) but would commit to never join the Western military alliance.

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.”

Much like Putin has done with Ukraine, in August 1944, Soviet leader Josef Stalin offered Finland a conditional peace agreement in return for Finland’s “denazification,” the resignation of its wartime President and the ceding of eleven percent of its territory to the USSR. Accordingly, Zelensky should follow the Finnish example and resign due to his continued refusal to lift his ban on peace negotiations with Russia, to allow an acting Ukrainian President to take his place who is willing to negotiate a peace agreement with Moscow and can lead Ukraine into a new era of lasting peace and prosperity. President Trump reportedly sent four senior administration officials to interview Ukrainian opposition leaders early last month to find a suitable Ukrainian leader (ideally former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko) who could replace Zelensky as Ukraine’s new President. As Trump has correctly noted, Zelensky is a “dictator without elections” since he continues to refuse to hold a democratic presidential election nearly a year after his constitutional term of office expired in violation of Article 43 of the Ukrainian constitution which provides no authorization for suspending presidential elections during a time of martial law.

A Realistic Peace Framework for Ending the War in Ukraine

Last week, President Trump’s unofficial Special Envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff, presented him with the only viable peace plan which would has a high chance of being successful in ending the war in Ukraine. After meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin for five hours on April 11^th, Witkoff reportedly told Trump that the easiest and fastest way to get a ceasefire was to support a strategy that would give Russia ownership of the four eastern regions of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk it annexed in September 2022. A couple of months ago, Witkoff expressed optimism that the United States would use the Istanbul Protocol Agreement as a blueprint for future peace talks. “We came very, very close to signing something, and I think we’ll be using that framework as a guidepost to get a peace deal done between Ukraine and Russia, and I think that will be an amazing day,” he said.

The Witkoff proposal for the US to implement the Istanbul Agreement which was initialed by the head of Ukraine’s delegation on March 29, 2022, but never signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and accept Russia’s demand for the four oblasts along the current line of control is the key to getting Russia to agree to a permanent cease-fire by Trump’s deadline of April 30^th. Since Ukraine has no chance of ever regaining any of their lost territories militarily they would be giving up nothing by agreeing to recognize continued Russian de facto control of the territories it already controls. In exchange, Russia would withdraw all its troops from three partially occupied Russian regions giving Ukraine full control of the remaining nineteen Ukrainian regions and partial control of four more, leading to a durable and lasting peace.

Any final peace agreement ending the war should be divided into a bilateral peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine and a legally binding strategic framework agreement or accord between the US and Russia, outlining all the commitments specifically relating to the US and Russia designed to address and resolve all the underlying reasons for the conflict to ensure a just and lasting peace. Since the strategic framework agreement would not constitute a formal treaty, the Trump administration could credibly argue it would not require ratification by the US Senate, preventing it from being able to reject the agreement.

What follows is my updated peace proposal. I am pleased to note that an earlier version of these peace terms was sent to a member of Trump’s national security team who is a Cabinet-level official. Hopefully, they will use them as a template for the Trump administration’s ongoing peace negotiations with Russia.

Russia-Ukraine Peace Agreement

1. All hostilities between the parties to the conflict will cease effective immediately. Ukraine pledges to amend its constitution back to its pre-2019 status to enshrine its permanent neutrality as well as to prohibit the presence of foreign troops and bases on its territory while removing its commitment to become a NATO member. Ukraine may retain all its bilateral security guarantees it has received previously and can join the European Union. In addition, Russia offers a security guarantee conditioned upon Ukraine ‘s adherence to the terms of the agreement.

2. Ukraine shall withdraw all its remaining troops from the Kursk and Belgorod oblasts and recognize Russian control of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts along the current lines of control, as well as Crimea, and renounce any attempt to retake them by military force, pending a final determination of their status by 2040. Furthermore, all Ukrainian military forces, excepting Border Guard units, shall be withdrawn from the constitutional borders of the four oblasts. In return, Russia shall renounce all claims on the Ukrainian-controlled portions of these oblasts and shall withdraw all its troops from Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Sumy oblasts while guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

3. A four-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone, policed by an international force of no more than 15,000 unarmed United Nations Military Observers from BRICS nations, shall be created along the entire length of Ukraine’s border with the four Russian-controlled oblasts to prevent future conflict. All prisoners of war shall be returned to their home countries and all refugees including forcibly displaced persons shall have the right to return to their homes. There will be no war crimes prosecutions or reparations. Ukrainian reconstruction assistance shall be provided by the European Union as well as from the proceeds of Western tariffs on Russian gas exports. Furthermore, Russia agrees to devote a large proportion of its $300 billion in financial assets abroad to pay for reconstruction costs in the four formerly Ukrainian controlled oblasts.

4. In exchange for Ukraine accepting Russia’s proposed limits on the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including National Guard, of 100,000 personnel, as outlined in the final April 15, 2022 draft of the Istanbul Agreement, Russia agrees to an expansion in the size of Ukraine’s Border Guard to 150,000 personnel. Border Guard units shall not be equipped with tanks or “strike systems,” except for drones. The total number of Ukrainian soldiers, airmen and sailors, including Border Guard and reservists, shall not exceed one million. In return, Russia agrees to limit the number of its troops in former Ukrainian-controlled territories to 250,000.

5. Ukraine agrees to Russia’s proposed limits on the quantity and ranges of its offensive "strike systems" systems’ outlined in the April 15, 2022 version of the Istanbul agreement including howitzers, heavy mortars, multiple rocket launch systems, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, combat aircraft, warships and medium to long-range combat drones as well as air defense missile systems. In addition, the maximum range of Ukraine’s combat drones shall not exceed forty kilometers. All weapon systems exceeding these limits will be returned to their nations of origin, sold or destroyed. In exchange, Russia agrees to Ukraine’s proposed quantity limits on primarily defensive weapon systems including tanks, armored vehicles, anti-tank guns, ATGMs, auxiliary aircraft, reconnaissance drones, auxiliary vessels, MANPADS and anti-aircraft artillery. Ukraine further commits to refrain from producing or possessing weapons of mass destruction and to close all foreign biological labs.

6. Full diplomatic relations between Russia and Ukraine will be restored and all bilateral sanctions rescinded. All public and private Russian financial and economic assets seized by Ukraine, or for which it was the recipient, shall be fully restored to their Russian owners. Russia and Ukraine agree to renew the 1997 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, committing each party not to use its territory to harm the security of the other and further their shared goal of peaceful co-existence.

7. The March 2022 decree banning eleven Ukrainian political parties shall be lifted. Ukraine shall hold presidential and parliamentary elections within four months of the signing of this treaty. All far-right, ultra-nationalist political parties shall be banned from participation in the Ukrainian government and all far-right, ultra-nationalist militia groups shall be disbanded. The Russian language shall be restored as one of the two official languages of Ukraine with equal status to the Ukrainian language. The rights of Ukraine’s Russian minority population as well as the rights of Ukraine’s Orthodox Christian church members shall be guaranteed by law.

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.

Explaining the Terms

Since I published my last peace proposal two months ago, I have updated the terms to include a Ukrainian withdrawal from its small salient of captured territory in Belgorod oblast, a Russian withdrawal from captured territory in Sumy and a proposal for Russia to spend $300 billion to rebuild former Ukrainian controlled territories. I also added that peacekeepers should be utilized from BRICS nations to patrol Russia’s border with Ukraine to ensure that neither side violated the peace agreement as reportedly the Trump administration is supportive of using Brazilian and Chinese troops for this purpose. The Trump administration could agree to accept most of Russia’s peace terms in exchange for Russia agreeing to an expansion of Ukraine’s Border Guards to 150,000 troops along with more defensive weapon systems to bolster Ukraine’s defensive capabilities.

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.

Understanding the principal aims of the US and Russia in fighting the war in Ukraine, a workable peace could be realized that would satisfy the minimum requirements of both sides. The proposed peace plan above would serve to accomplish the primary US goal of keeping Ukraine independent from Russia with control of nearly four-fifths of its internationally recognized territory. It would also achieve Russia’s main goals of Ukraine pledging to never become a NATO member state and having all NATO troops withdrawn from Ukraine. Such a peace agreement would also "recognize the reality on the ground" as Russia has outlined as being one of its requirements by ending the war along the current line of control.

The size of the Ukrainian armed forces and the number of its major weapon systems and ranges will undoubtedly again be one of the main sticking points for the US just as it was with the Istanbul agreement. The Trump administration’s reported peace framework, the terms of which were shared with both our NATO partners and Ukraine at a meeting in Paris yesterday, fails to account for Russia’s demand that any peace agreement include any provisions for Ukrainian disarmament. Instead, it calls for the US massively expanding Ukraine’s military power after a peace deal is realized to deter potential future Russian aggression. Russia will not sign any peace agreement that does not include a major reduction in the size of the Ukrainian armed forces and achieving “a sanitary zone” along its borders by eliminating all Ukrainian ‘strike systems’ with ranges of over forty kilometers to establish a ‘sanitary zone’ to protect Russia from future attack. Accordingly, it will be important to map out a compromise arrangement along the lines of Article Five above recognizing that Russia’s main concerns have to do with limiting the quantity and ranges of Ukrainian offensive “strike systems” rather than shorter-range, defensive weapon systems on which they could prove more flexible.

Implementing this agreement would prevent anymore Ukrainian soldiers from being killed, avoid even one more square inch of Ukrainian territory from falling under Russia control and enable Ukraine to keep 87.4 percent of its prewar controlled territory. It would also allow the long and arduous process of Ukrainian reconstruction to begin, and permit all 10.8 million Ukrainian refugees to return to their homes. Under its terms, the Ukrainian armed forces would remain one of the largest in Europe, with nearly a million men and four to five times more tanks than the UK Royal Army. The administration could credibly point to a peace deal guaranteeing Ukrainian security and independence in which Russia withdrew all its troops from Sumy, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv oblasts, renounced all claims on additional Ukrainian territory, and agreed to many Ukrainian-requested limitations on its number of troops and weapons as a major victory. With terms favorable to all parties, it could end up being a “win-win” peace agreement for the US, Russia and Ukraine, maximizing the chances that it would be successful in preventing the outbreak of a future conflict.

US troops boarding a troop transport. President Trump has given every indication he is planning a major US troop withdrawal from Europe within the next year or two.

President Trump is reportedly calling for a reduction of 20,000 US troops in Europe, the exact number I proposed in Article Two of my previously proposed US-Russia Strategic Framework Agreement. Trump is also demanding a subsidy from America’s European allies to help pay the costs for the remaining 80,000 US military personnel on the continent. I strongly commend him for both of these excellent moves. A US military withdrawal from Eastern Europe should be a core part of the peace plan to reduce our perceived threat to Russia and greatly improve bilateral relations with Moscow. Given Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement in February that the US focus was moving from Europe to defend our own borders as well as to deter Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific, it would make good strategic sense to transfer all 150 US B-61 nuclear gravity bombs from Western Europe to the Western Pacific.

If the US were to withdraw all its troops from Eastern Europe and transfer all its non-strategic nuclear weapons from Western Europe to the Western Pacific, it would force our European allies to greatly increase their own defense spending knowing that there would no longer be a US nuclear tripwire that could pressure the US to go to war with Russia over a small Baltic or other European country in which the US has little to no national security interest. Furthermore, the provision that neither the US, nor Russia may send heavy bombers or surface warships within two-hundred miles of the other’s territory, except for the Bering Strait given the eighty-five-kilometer distance between our two countries would not only provide increased security to both sides but would significantly contribute to eliminating the chances of miscalculation leading to accidental war.

This proposed US-Russia Strategic Framework Agreement in particular would go far to address Russia’s Desire to conclude a peace agreement which “address the root causes of the conflict.” It should be noted that even if the US is unsuccessful in finalizing a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine, the Trump administration should still negotiate a Strategic Framework agreement along the lines I am recommending above in order to implement President Trump’s brilliant plan to forge a grand geostrategic partnership for peace with Russia that could neutralize its military alliance with the People’s Republic of China.

A US delegation led by Vice President Vance, Tulsi Gabbard or even Special Envoy Steve Witkoff could negotiate a peace deal with Russia based on my proposed peace terms in just three days. Witkoff has proven the best negotiator that Trump has so he could lead a US delegation with plenipotentiary powers to negotiate a deal on behalf of the US based on the Istanbul Agreement which Trump and Putin could sign in a summit meeting in Riyadh or another neutral location. If Zelensky refused to sign the peace agreement negotiated between the US and Russia and refused to implement its terms, the Trump administration could threaten to cut off military and intelligence security assistance to Ukraine including Starlink access to pressure him to sign it. Zelensky would most likely opt to sign the agreement rather than risk Ukraine’s entire frontline collapsing following a cut off of Ukraine’s 40,000 Starlink terminals which would serve to cut off its communications and GPS access effectively disabling the vast majority of Ukraine’s sizable drone army, which has proved critical in preventing Russian forces from engaging in large-scale offensives along the Eastern Front. Former President Joe Biden ordered Elon Musk to turn off Russia’s Starlink access last year so Trump could order Musk to turn off Ukraine’s access as well.

Early last month, Starlink CEO Elon Musk posted on “X” that "Zelensky wants a forever war, a never-ending graft meat grinder. This is evil." The next day he posted that he is "sickened by" the years of "slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose." Secretary Rubio admonished Poland’s Foreign Minister Sikorski for being critical of Elon Musk, stating, “They should say thank you, because without Starlink, Ukraine likely would have lost the war long ago, and Russian forces would be at Poland’s border by now.” More likely, Zelensky would have been forced to sign the Istanbul Agreement in early April 2022 and all Russian troops would have been withdrawn to their prewar territory and over a million brave Ukrainian soldiers would not have been killed or wounded in battle in the three years since Biden and Zelensky opted to prolong this senseless war unnecessarily.

Finally, it is important to note that the US does not need permission from our NATO partners to agree to a peace agreement with Russia. Realistically, they are so committed to Biden’s war in Ukraine that they will never agree to support a negotiated peace agreement acceptable to Russia. The Trump administration can end the war without their support.

Conclusion

Only a peace agreement that recognizes Russia’s legitimate security concerns with regards to Ukraine and NATO will ensure Russia does not attack Ukraine again. The best way to make Russia feel secure from NATO is to expel NATO’s presence from Ukraine and restore its neutral buffer state status. That has always been the only path to achieve true security for Ukraine as has been proven by the fact that Russia never attacked Ukraine from 1991-February 2014 prior to the CIA-backed Maidan coup. Ukraine would be much better off to accept armed neutrality along the Finnish model and to resume its Treaty of Friendship with Moscow to guarantee Russia never has any reason to attack it again.

President Trump is the only US president in the past thirty-two years to understand that the key to enhancing America’s national security is in seeking out better relations with Russia and China utilizing a prudent mix of diplomacy and deterrence in furtherance of US national security interests. He should follow Nixon’s sage advice in seeking peaceful accommodations with Russia and China which satisfy the vital interests of all three nuclear superpowers and serve to increase international peace and stability while making no concessions to them without receiving reciprocal concessions in return. The objective of our diplomatic understandings with Moscow and Beijing should be to increase the security of all parties and to remove any provocations or incentives they have to attack us just as President Ronald Reagan did with the Soviets in furtherance of his policy of peace through strength.

If the US agrees to Russia's main peace terms, then the chances of the outbreak of world war between Russia and the US, that could quickly escalate to the nuclear level, would decrease to zero so long as the US is successful in pressuring Ukraine to honor the terms of the agreement, and pressure our NATO partners not to provoke Russia to war, providing a future Democrat President doesn't violate the agreement. The ensuing de-facto elimination of the Russian conventional military and nuclear threat to the US and Europe would go far to enhance the security of America’s NATO allies, regardless of whether they opt to increase their defense spending or not and would likely serve to strengthen the pro-peace European parties on both the left and right in opposition to their current predominantly pro-war governments.

Once implemented, this peace agreement could secure President Trump’s legacy as one of the greatest transformational peace presidents in American history. He might even be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, not just for ending the war in Ukraine and saving the U.S. and Europe from a full-scale war with Russia that could cost the lives of tens of millions of our citizens, but for creating the conditions necessary to forge an enduring peace, for which future generations would be deeply grateful.

© 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 17th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss growing reports that the US is preparing to engage in joint US-Israeli missile strikes on Iran as the Trump administration continues to ramp up attacks on the Houthis as well as Chinese preparations to invade Taiwan as early as April.

March 18th—Interview with Brannon Howse on his Worldview Weekend Radio Show to discuss the latest developments with regards to US and Israeli air and missile strikes on Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria and the chances it may lead to a direct war between the US and Israel that could bring in Russia and China.

March 18th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the outcome of the three-hour long Trump-Putin phone call and the chances it could lead to a permanent end to the war in Ukraine. We will also discuss how America’s alliances don’t make us safer but rather put Americans at far greater risk of World War Three than if the US were to commit not to intervene militarily in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Taiwan.

March 20th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the ramifications of the Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Engels air base which may have damaged some of Russia’s T-160 “Blackjack” nuclear bombers and his continuing attempts to get the US and NATO into a direct war with Russia. We will also discuss reported Russian military buildups in Belarus and Kaliningrad and how they may relate to China’s preparations to blockade and/or invade Taiwan as early as next month.

March 21st- Interview on the Dr. Maria show on Lindell TV to discuss the ramifications of the Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Engels air base which may have damaged some of Russia’s T-160 “Blackjack” nuclear bombers and his continuing attempts to get the US and NATO into a direct war with Russia.

March 21st—Interview with KUTV 2 News reporter David Ochoa about the Rep. Mike Kennedy and Rep. Celeste Malloy townhall in which they were booed and heckled by boisterous liberal protesters calling for them to impeach President Trump for DOGE cuts and defying judicial orders to bring back criminal gang members to the U.S.

March 21st—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the ramifications of the fire at London’s Heathrow Airport which stopped all flights at the UK’s largest airport as well as the US decision to move a carrier strike group from the Western Pacific to the Middle East at a time that China may be on the verge of invading Taiwan.

March 25th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell to discuss the progress of US and Russian negotiations on a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine and form a US-Russia grand strategic partnership for peace as well as the chances that China will blockade Taiwan in early April.

March 25th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the leak of imminent plans for US military strikes on the Houthis in a Signal group between top Trump administration national security officials to a leftwing news magazine editor and whether any of the officials responsible should face disciplinary measures from President Trump including dismissal.

March 26th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss a US intelligence official’s assertion that National Security Mike Waltz lied about knowing Atlantic news magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg and that he was a source for Goldberg’s articles while he was on the US intelligence committee as well as Deputy National Security Advisor Alex Wong’s family ties to the CCP.

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.

Upcoming Interviews

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 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.