Two advisors to Donald Trump, Lieutenant General (Retired) Keith Kellogg and the former National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz, have presented a plan to the former president for handling the ongoing war in the Donbass. Part of the plan includes conditioning future aid to Ukraine on Kiev’s participation in peace talks with Russia.
The plan, which was outlined in a paper by the America First Policy Institute, also criticizes earlier U.S. plans to add Ukraine to NATO. The advisors wrote that the Biden’s administration’s inclusion of Ukraine in the alliance system was a mistake as “it was in America’s best interests to maintain peace with Putin and not provoke and alienate him with aggressive globalist human rights and pro-democracy campaigns or an effort to promote Ukrainian membership in NATO.”
The plan further adds that Ukrainian NATO membership should at least be delayed, stating that “to convince Putin to join peace talks, President Biden and other NATO leaders should offer to put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period in exchange for a comprehensive and verifiable peace deal with security guarantees.”
The plan also includes the promise of greater aid to Kiev if Russia refuses to participate. As Putin has reiterated his desire for peace talks many times, including in a joint statement with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, it seems unlikely that this would occur.
Read the full article here