US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump may propose a new plan to resolve the war in Ukraine, which is supposed to be an updated version of the Minsk agreements with sanctions for their violation if he wins the election.
The Financial Times reports this with reference to a longtime Trump adviser.
As noted, James DiVance, whom Trump chose as a vice presidential candidate, said earlier that the peace agreement may include a freeze on hostilities on the current front line and Ukraine’s refusal to join NATO.
According to Trump’s adviser, the new plan will include mechanisms to force the parties to comply with the agreement, which was not the case with the Minsk agreements. According to the adviser, European troops, not NATO or UN forces, should enforce the agreement. “This is Europe’s task, not the United States’, the adviser emphasized.
The newspaper also reports that Trump’s allies believe that Ukraine is likely to lose the war, so they insist on resolving the conflict as a “morally right” step.
According to the Financial Times, Trump reportedly believes that incumbent President Joe Biden should engage in a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as US presidents once did with Soviet leaders during the Cold War.
In addition, Trump doubts that NATO membership for Ukraine is possible in the near future, so the issue of accession may be postponed to encourage Russia to negotiate. “We’re temporarily freezing the conflict, Ukraine is not ceding territory and maintaining its claims, but reaching a final agreement probably won’t be possible until Putin is out of the political arena,” said Fred Fleitz, an adviser in the first Trump administration.