Russia’s sweeping demands for peace with Ukraine will not be accepted, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer tells Newsmax.
“These are conditions which would essentially expand the territory that the Russians hold with no real guarantees that they won’t continue to move toward the Dnieper [River] or any other region,” Shaffer, appearing on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America” with former National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz, commented Wednesday.
“So it’s essentially saying, ‘hey, we want to run, we want to go into the casino and just take every take, all the winnings before we gamble.’ That’s what they’re trying to do, and it’s not going to be accepted,” he added.
The Russian demands include requiring Ukraine to withdraw from four partially occupied regions that Russia has annexed, along with halting Western arms deliveries, ending mobilization efforts, and recognizing Moscow’s previous annexations.
Shaffer said that he believes the only potential solution to the impasse is to get President Donald Trump into a room with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks.
“This proposal, this is what I’ve been calling Istanbul Plus, which is something they looked at right after the war started, except worse,” said Shaffer. “This is a worse deal versus what [special envoy for Ukraine] Keith Kellogg and Company proposed, a 22-point plan that they’re proposing, which essentially is Minsk three. So those two plans, there’s nothing there that relates to them at all. So this is a very difficult situation.”
Fleitz, meanwhile, said that the Russian proposal “amounts to a demand for Ukraine to surrender.”
“It would destroy Ukrainian sovereignty,” he said, adding that Ukraine is prepared to deal on some issues.
“They know they can’t get into NATO right now,” he said.”They know they can’t get Crimea back. A proposal that’s silent on those issues, or maybe has a time limit on when NATO membership would be considered, I think that could be sold to the Ukrainians. But this proposal from the Russians shows that Putin is simply not interested in peace right now.”
Putin will likely continue a summer offensive within weeks, Fleitz added.
“President Trump is going to say, ‘I’ve had it. It’s time to start implementing very tough sanctions and then really crippling economic sanctions,'” he said.
Fleitz and Shaffer also discussed the ongoing war in Gaza, with Fleitz commenting that he does not think the hostilities are anywhere near a resolution.
“We’re seeing small movement by the Palestinians in Gaza moving against Hamas,” he said. “I think the most significant development, which isn’t getting a lot of press coverage, is how the Trump administration is using contractors to distribute aid, and it’s starting to succeed. There’s been a lot of violence surrounding that, because Hamas doesn’t want the aid to be given out by the U.S. They want to steal it from the U.N.”
Hamas, Shaffer said, had turned aid into a “profit center.”
“One of the things that Hamas has lost greatly, not all, but mostly, is funding from Iran,” he said. “When they lost that, they lost a great deal of their ability to actually buy things that they need, such as guns and weapons. They were monetizing the pain of their own people. Think about that. Not only did they take hostages, they’re literally trying to fundraise off the suffering of their own people.”
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