By Gram Slattery and Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump's advisers are publicly and privately making proposals to end the war in Ukraine, which would cede large parts of the country to Russia in the near future, according to a Reuters analysis of their statements and interviews with various people close to the US president-elect.
The proposals from three key advisers, including Trump's new Russia-Ukraine envoy, retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, share some elements, including taking NATO membership off the table for Ukraine.
Trusted news and daily treats, straight to your inbox
See for yourself: The Yodel is the source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories.
Trump's advisers are said to be trying to force Moscow and Kiev into negotiations, including cutting off military aid to Kiev unless it agrees to talk but increasing aid if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses.
Trump repeatedly promised during his election campaign to end the nearly three-year-old conflict within 24 hours of his Jan. 20 inauguration, if not sooner, but has yet to say how.
Analysts and former national security officials express serious doubts that Trump can deliver on such a promise due to the complexity of the conflict.
Taken together, however, his advisers' statements suggest the possible contours of a Trump peace plan.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, facing manpower shortages and mounting territorial losses, has indicated he may be open to negotiations.
While still committed to joining NATO, he said this week that Ukraine must find diplomatic solutions to regain some of its occupied territories.
But Trump may find Putin unwilling to get involved, analysts and former U.S. officials said, because he has the Ukrainians in the background and may have more to gain by pursuing further land grabs.
“Putin is in no hurry,” said Eugene Rumer, a former U.S. intelligence analyst on Russia who now works at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
The Russian leader, he said, is showing no willingness to give up his terms for a ceasefire and talks that would require Ukraine to give up its NATO mission and control the four provinces that Putin claims are part of Russia but not fully under control , a demand rejected by Kiev.
Putin, Rumer said, will likely bide his time, take more ground and wait to see what concessions, if any, Trump can make to lure him to the negotiating table.
Reuters reported in May that Putin was prepared to end the war with a negotiated ceasefire that recognized current frontlines but was prepared to continue fighting if Kiev and the West did not respond.
Russia already controls all of Crimea, having unilaterally seized it from Ukraine in 2014 and has since taken over about 80% of the Donbas – which consists of Donetsk and Luhansk – as well as more than 70% of Zaporizhia and Kherson, and small parts of Crimea. the Mykolaiv and Kharkov regions.
MORE THAN ONE PLAN
Last week, Trump had yet to convene a central working group to hammer out a peace plan, according to four advisers who requested anonymity to describe private deliberations. Instead, various advisers pitched ideas among themselves in public forums and — in some cases — to Trump, they said.
Ultimately, a peace deal will likely depend on direct personal involvement between Trump, Putin and Zelenskiy, the advisers said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “not possible to comment on individual statements without having an idea of the plan as a whole.”
Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt noted that Trump has said he “will do whatever it takes to restore peace and rebuild American strength and deterrence on the world stage.”
A Trump representative did not immediately respond to a follow-up question about whether the president-elect still plans to resolve the dispute within a day of taking office.
The Ukrainian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A former Trump national security official involved in the transition said there are three main proposals: Kellogg's draft, one from newly elected Vice President J.D. Vance and another from Richard Grenell, the former acting intelligence chief Trump.
Kellogg's plan, written with former National Security Council official Fred Fleitz and presented to Trump earlier this year, calls for freezing the current battle lines.
Kellogg and Fleitz did not respond to requests for comment. Their plan was first reported by Reuters.
Trump would only supply more American weapons to Kiev if the country agreed to peace talks. At the same time, he would warn Moscow that he would increase U.S. aid to Ukraine if Russia rejected the negotiations. Ukraine's NATO membership would be suspended.
Under that proposal, Ukraine would also be offered U.S. security guarantees, including increasing arms supplies after an agreement is reached.
In a June interview with Times Radio, a British digital broadcaster, Sebastian Gorka, one of Trump's deputy national security advisers, said Trump told him he would force Putin into talks by threatening unprecedented arms shipments to Ukraine if Putin refused.
Gorka, reached by phone, called Reuters “fake news nonsense” and declined to elaborate.
Vance, who as a US senator has opposed aid to Ukraine, came up with a strange idea in September.
He told US podcaster Shawn Ryan that a deal would likely include a demilitarized zone on existing front lines that would be “heavily fortified” to prevent further Russian incursions. His proposal would deny Kiev membership of NATO.
Representatives for Vance did not make him available for comment and he has not yet provided additional details.
Grenell, Trump's former ambassador to Germany, advocated the creation of “autonomous zones” in eastern Ukraine during a Bloomberg roundtable in July, but did not elaborate. He also suggested that Ukraine's NATO membership was not in America's interests.
Grenell, who did not respond to a request for comment, has not yet secured a position in the new administration, although he still has Trump's ear on European issues, a senior Trump foreign policy adviser told Reuters.
That person said Grenell was one of a handful of people at a September meeting in New York between Trump and Zelenskiy.
RETURN PROBABLY
Elements of the proposals would likely face pushback from Zelenskiy, who has made a NATO invitation part of his own “Victory Plan,” as well as from European allies and some U.S. lawmakers, analysts and former national security officials say.
Last week, Ukraine's foreign minister sent a letter to his NATO counterparts, urging them to extend an invitation to join at a meeting of foreign ministers on Tuesday.
Some European allies have expressed willingness to increase aid to Ukraine, and US President Joe Biden continues to send weapons. That could cost Trump some leverage to bring Kiev to the table.
The Kellogg plan, which hinges on increasing aid to Ukraine if Putin doesn't come to the table, could face a backlash in Congress, where some of Trump's closest allies oppose additional military aid to the Eastern European country.
“I don't think anyone has a realistic plan to end this,” said Rumer, the former U.S. intelligence officer.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery and Jonathan Landay in Washington; additional reporting by Tom Balmforth in Kiev and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)
