As President Donald Trump continues trying to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine through diplomacy, former Undersecretary of Defense Robert Wilkie told Newsmax that a sticking point for Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely “about land.”
“Putin is now demanding territory from Ukraine that he doesn’t even occupy,” Wilkie said on “American Agenda.” “If he gets that line that begins in the Donetsk region, what he has done is crack the Ukrainian defensive line, and what I mean by that is that most of the territory that borders Russia and even Russia proper, up to the Ural Mountains behind Moscow, is flat. That’s why Russia has been invaded so many times in its history, because there are no natural barriers.
“In Ukraine, the same applies,” he said. “If Putin were to get that land, it would be wide open for when he restores his armored mechanized forces, it would be wide open for a full-scale invasion. And there won’t be any rivers or forests or fortified areas to stop him. That’s why he wants it, and that’s why it’s a nonstarter for [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy.”
Asked about the most painful concession Ukraine might have to make to end the war, Wilkie said, “They’re going to have to recognize that, unless someone is telling [Trump] that the Europeans want to take Moscow, then you’re going to have to stop on the lines that exist right now.
“That means that the Ukrainians will be facing Russian occupation, continued occupation, of land that they call their own. Now, this is not unusual in the post-World War II world. I mean, [former President] Franklin Roosevelt himself refused to recognize Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, even though Russian Soviet troops were all over them, and that actually gave those nations hope that in the end, the Soviet Union would fall and America would come to their rescue, which we did.
“So, that’s the kind of thing that we’re looking at,” Wilkie said. “We also see that on the North-South Korea border, that demilitarized zone, even though the Kims want to claim all of Korea, they’re not going to get it. And if the president continues to say what he said at this press conference, Putin has to think twice because the president has said that the United States will provide security guarantees for the Ukrainians.”
Trump and Zelenskyy met Monday at the White House and expressed hope that their discussions would lead to trilateral talks with Putin. Monday’s meeting came after the president met on Friday with the Russian leader in Alaska.
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