{"id":35262,"date":"2024-11-29T00:47:53","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T06:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=35262"},"modified":"2024-11-29T00:47:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T06:47:58","slug":"trumps-national-security-adviser-pick-is-weighing-proposals-to-end-the-russia-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=35262","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s national security adviser pick is weighing proposals to end the Russia-Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s<\/u><\/a> soon-to-be national security adviser Mike Waltz<\/u><\/a> has been weighing several proposals in recent days for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine<\/u><\/a>, including one from Gen. Keith Kellogg who Trump announced Wednesday as his pick to be to be special envoy to the countries, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the specifics of a strategy are still being worked on, Trump officials will likely push for a ceasefire early on to freeze the conflict temporarily while both sides negotiate, the people said. Trump administration officials are also expected to push for European allies and NATO to take on more of the cost-sharing burden for supporting Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to bring this to a responsible end,\u201d Waltz told Fox over the weekend. \u201cWe need to restore deterrence, restore peace, and get ahead of this escalation ladder, rather than responding to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to winning the election, Trump repeatedly claimed that the Russia-Ukraine war would not have started if he had been president. He also vowed to end the war, sometimes even claiming he would stop the years-long conflict before taking office. In July, he said he could settle the conflict in one day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his September presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris<\/u><\/a>, Trump refused to say he was committed to Ukraine defeating Russia. Later that month, he suggested that Ukraine should have \u201cgiven up a little bit\u201d to Moscow, saying at a campaign event that \u201cany deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plans Waltz is reviewing include a proposal from Kellogg, who served as an adviser on national security issues in the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration. He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!\u201d Trump posted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kellogg plan calls for continued US military aid to Ukraine to be conditioned on Kyiv participating in peace talks with Russia and \u201ca formal US policy to seek a cease-fire and negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict.\u201d Ukraine\u2019s desire to join NATO, meanwhile, would be \u201cput off\u201d for an extended period to draw Russia to the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waltz has also reviewed a separate proposal that has been endorsed by Trump\u2019s former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grenell has previously expressed support for the creation of \u201cautonomous regions\u201d inside Ukraine, though he has not explained in detail what that would look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAutonomous regions can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but you got to work through those details,\u201d he told Bloomberg<\/u><\/a> in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another idea being floated is to allow Russia to keep the territory it holds now in exchange for Ukraine getting NATO membership, though few people in Trump\u2019s orbit appear eager to invite Ukraine into NATO anytime soon, the people said. That\u2019s a view at least partly shared by the Biden administration, which has said<\/u><\/a> that Ukraine will join NATO but only when the war is over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine was among a range of issues Waltz discussed with Biden\u2019s national security adviser Jake Sullivan during a meeting last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Trump transition spokesman said the president-elect is committed to ending the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs President Trump has said on the campaign trail, he is the only person who can bring both sides together in order to negotiate peace, and work towards ending the war and stopping the killing,\u201d Trump communications director Steven Cheung said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Too early to say\u2019 what ultimate strategy will look like<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Still, sources caution that it is \u201ctoo early\u201d to say what the Trump team\u2019s strategy for ending the war in Ukraine will ultimately look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, himself, is always altering his positions and messaging tactics \u2013 particularly on foreign policy issues \u2013 meaning the planning process as it relates to Ukraine will likely be fluid, one source familiar with internal transition discussions noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this month that \u201cfrom our side, we must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means.\u201d But he has also lambasted the idea of implementing a ceasefire without security guarantees first from the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCeasefire? We tried that in 2014, we tried to reach it and then we lost Crimea and then we had the full-scale war in 2022,\u201d Zelensky said at a conference in Budapest earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zelensky, who met with Trump in New York in September, told reporters in Budapest that \u201cI believe that President Trump really wants a quick decision\u201d to end the war. \u201cHe [Trump] wants this war to be finished. We all want to end this war, but a fair ending. \u2026 If it is very fast, it\u2019s going to be a loss for Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump allies tapped to serve in top national security roles have already signaled publicly that the President-elect is considering a range of options to bring both Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table \u2013 including some that appear to contradict his previously stated views on the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sebastian Gorka, who Trump recently named to serve as one of Waltz\u2019s top deputies, recently called Russian President Vladimir Putin a \u201cthug\u201d and said the incoming administration could ramp up US military aid to Ukraine, beyond the current level of support, in an effort to bring about a swift end to the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will give one tip away that the president has mentioned, he will say to that murderous former KGB colonel, that thug who runs the Russian federation, you will negotiate now or the aid we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts. That\u2019s how he will force those gentlemen to come to an arrangement that stops the bloodshed,\u201d Gorka said during a recent interview on Times Radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, top Trump officials anticipate the president-elect will want to take a similarly hard line toward Ukraine and could threaten to withhold aid if they do not come to the negotiating table, according to a source familiar with ongoing discussions about ending the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent weeks, the Biden administration allowed Ukraine to use US-made long-range missiles to strike targets deep within Russia. For months, Zelensky publicly lobbied the US to green light the use of the ATACMS missiles, but the US only relented in mid-November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision came a short time after the administration lifted a de facto ban on US contractors working in Ukraine in order to more quickly repair advanced systems like F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile defense systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cnn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s soon-to-be national security adviser Mike Waltz has been weighing several proposals in recent days for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, including one from Gen. Keith Kellogg who Trump announced Wednesday as his pick to be to be special envoy to the countries, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN While the specifics of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1219,2389,1230],"class_list":["post-35262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-national","tag-security","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35262"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35265,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35262\/revisions\/35265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}