Trump may present start of settlement negotiations as victory – expert

This opinion was expressed by Oleksandr Kraiev, an expert at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, speaking on Radio NV, Ukrinform reports.

“First of all, this (Waltz’s statement – ed.) means that after all, the Trump team has decided to ‘hear the Russians’, ‘hear Putin’, and show that they are ready for some kind of compromise, as they call it. For them, the compromise will be that ‘indeed, Ukraine is doing well, Ukraine needs weapons, it needs support’, but we will not promote an entirely Ukrainian narrative, because the whole world believes that the liberation of 100 percent of Ukrainian territory is an exclusively Ukrainian narrative. Secondly, this, unfortunately, confirms that they still believe peace can be achieved quickly,” said Kraiev.

According to the expert, the comments from representatives of the future Trump administration that there will be mutual concessions, that Ukraine should see the situation more realistically, indicates that they really believe that, conditionally, within a hundred days, as Keith Kellogg said, it is possible to start negotiations, and within six months, as Trump said, they can be finalized, without even having a final strategy.

At the same time, the expert recalled that two weeks ago, Trump stated that it was impossible to end support for Ukraine, because this would mean Ukraine’s loss and the failure of negotiations. In his opinion, this means that Trump does not want to completely abandon the Ukraine issue.

“One way or another, the Trump administration is aimed at hearing out both sides and starting negotiations from some middle ground, to ensure that they kick off as such. That is, the lack of strategy, the narrative game targeting both sides, the lack of a vision of the final implementation of the Peace Formula and Ukraine’s Victory Plan indicate that, firstly, at this stage they are not interested in a full-fledged resolution of the issue (ending the war – ed.), and secondly, as a real victory, say, Trump would be able to pass off even the very fact of the start of negotiations. That is, it does not matter how they end, it is important that they begin,” summed up the expert.

As reported, Donald Trump’s pick for the National Security Adviser post, Mike Waltz, confirmed that the president-elect’s team is working on preparing a meeting with the Russian leader and will establish contact with the Russian side “in the coming months” to this end. Waltz also noted that an agreement on a ceasefire would be a “very positive first step” in order to begin diplomatic negotiations to end the war. In addition, he called the intention to “expel every single Russian soldier from every inch of Ukrainian territory, even Crimea, unrealistic”.

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