Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump plans to end the Russian war in Ukraine by freezing it if he wins the U.S. presidential election, writes the Financial Times. 28, citing its sources close to the former president’s team.
“Trump has claimed he would end Russia’s war within “24 hours” without elaborating on how he plans to achieve it. Some reports and statements from Trump’s inner circle indicate this might entail pressuring Ukraine to cede territory or give up on its NATO aspirations.
Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, in September, outlined the idea of freezing the war by establishing autonomous regions on both sides of the demilitarized zone and leaving Ukraine outside NATO, according to the FT.
According to one of Trump’s longtime advisors, the new plan would rethink the failed Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, which were never implemented. The agreements contained a plan that would create autonomous zones in Russian occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Occupied Crimea was not mentioned in the Minsk Agreement.
The new plan will include enforcement mechanisms and consequences for violating the agreement, the adviser said. But, in his opinion, European troops, not NATO forces or U.N. peacekeepers, will have to keep order: “There are two things America will insist on. We will not have any men or women in the enforcement mechanism. We’re not paying for it. Europe is paying for it”.