Trump surrendering to Putin? US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia says NATO's eastward expansion can be stopped
Will Trump say yes to Putin?
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US President Donald Trump 's administration is ready to discuss NATO's expansion eastwards to meet one of the major demands of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin before the ceasefire in the war against Ukraine. Lt Gen Joseph Kellogg (retd), the US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, in an interview to ABC News admitted that Ukraine's proposal to join the western military alliance is one of the points that Russia has been raising during the talks.Putin has been firm on stopping Ukraine from becoming a NATO member, which the Russians believe is a red line that should not be crossed. Gen Kellogg stated that the issue of Ukraine's desire of joining NATO is not even being discussed within the military bloc."Well I think, it's a fair concern and we have said that repeatedly. We have said that that to us Ukraine coming into NATO is not on the table. And we're not the only country that says that. You know I can probably give you four of the countries in NATO and it it takes 32 of the 32 to allow you to come into NATO. We've seen other countries say "we're not too sure about that." And that that's one of the issues that Russia will bring up, and they're only talking Ukraine. They're talking the country of Georgia, they're talking Moldova," Gen Kellogg replied when about what Russia's conditions.However, the US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia quickly added that the decision on NATO's proposed expansion was only for President Trump to take. "We can stop the expansion of NATO coming close to your (Russian) border. That's a security concern from them. But that's a presidential decision. It's not my decision to make, and these are things we go to the President and say Mr President this is what we talked about. This is what everybody's willing to do. Are you willing to accept that, are you willing to go with it. Then you know hopefully then we'll have a negotiation," he asserted."Hopefully then we'll have a negotiation, a discussion between President Trump, President Putin and (Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy, and get an end state to this and stop the killing."The two warring sides - Ukraine and Russia - have shared their memorandums with the US team which will now create a single document before the talks in Türkiye's capital Istanbul on Monday (June 2). Officials from the UK, France and Germany, too, would be part of the talks.In a big confidence-building measure Ukraine and Russia exchanged 1,000 POWs each after talks on May 16. But things have moved slowly with the Russian side pressing on with its over three-year-long offensive against Ukraine.Gen Kellogg also highlighted that the two sides have lost a massively large number of troops and civilians in the war which has at times threatened to engulf the entire European continent."Their numbers on both sides when you add them together both wounded and dead are conservatively are about 1.2 million. That is a stunning number I mean this is war at an industrial strength level," he said.He also cautioned Putin against underestimating President Trump and voiced the US administration's"President just said this week that that Putin is playing with fire by refusing to engage in these ceasefire talks even as he's saying this Russian forces are making small gains on the battlefield. So what happens when Putin plays with fire? Well, I think it's a huge mistake to do that with Donald Trump, I think one of the things you want to one thing you should never underestimate Donald Trump. The second is never put him in a position that he thinks he's being used and and I think his frustration is that he's put forward some reasonable proposals and reasonable discussions, and he's seen a level of of unreasonableness that really frustrates him. It frustrates me as well," he added.Russia launched its special military offensive, the term used for Moscow for attacking Ukraine, in February 2022 and the war has dragged on with both sides indulging in a bruising battle. In spite of NATO nations supplying western weapons to Ukraine, Kiev has been unable to push back the Russian forces.Putin, too, has been unable to achieve his stated aim of "denazifying" Ukraine which is about overthrowing the Zelenskyy government and capturing all the Russian speaking regions of the country. He has also on several occasions threatened the western world of a nuclear war if they intervened in the war directly.
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