Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, hasn’t said a lot about Russia’s war in Ukraine, the biggest international news story before Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza shoved it off the front pages. When Trump does mention the conflict, he tends to keep his comments extremely vague. At times, they’re contradictory.
The day before Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, for instance, Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin “genius” and “savvy” for declaring Ukraine’s Donbas region independent and using it as a pretext to send Russian forces in. Weeks later, once the invasion was in full swing, the former president was more morose on Putin: “Now, a lot of things are changing. … This doesn’t seem to be the same Putin that I was dealing with.”
Are there problems with Trump’s reported land-for-peace idea? No question. But as the war goes on, the realistic alternatives are becoming more difficult to spot.
But through it all, Trump has been consistent on one thing: The war should end sooner than later, ideally immediately. During a May 2023 CNN town hall, he stated that he wanted Russians and Ukrainians alike “to stop dying” and that striking a deal was the only way to do it. He has bragged repeatedly that he could hammer out a peace deal in 24 hours, even as he refuses to articulate his strategy for pulling off such a feat.
We now possibly know more details of Trump’s proposed Russia-Ukraine strategy, as reported by The Washington Post over the weekend. The Post cites people who discussed the plan with Trump or his advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about confidential conversations and suggest Trump would plan to push Ukraine to hand over control of Crimea and the Donbas region to Russia in any future settlement, in effect codifying the gains Putin has made in his illegal invasion. In return, Putin would have to stop the war for good.
The…
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