Trump may stand hard against Putin in Ukraine

Content:

Original link: Donald Trump will be no friend of the Kremlin / TheTelegraph.

Russias economy is in bad shape due to war and sanctions.

But the expectation has been that if Putin could just stay afloat until Trump was back in the white house, then Trump would force Ukraine to make a peace deal that was somewhat favorable for Putin.

And it is not just the "blame everything on Trump" crowd. Hungary prime minister and foreign minister has hinted strongly at it. Reuters and NYT.

But latest expectation is that Trump will play hard.

This article list:

“The first order of business is to force Putin to the table,” said Robert O’Brien,Trump’s former National Security Adviser
and still a close confidant. “Right now he has no incentive to do so. He thinks he’s going to win.

“The easiest way to do that without some sort of escalation that puts us in danger of a nuclear exchange is massive sanctions,” he said.

He advises Trump to go for the jugular on oil, gas, and commodities, backed with secondary sanctions
on Chinese or Indian entities that breach the blockade.

This is more or less the thinking of Marco Rubio, the incoming secretary of state, who says
the core issue at this late juncture is who will have the negotiating leverage. 

“Is it going to be Putin or is it going to be Ukraine? I want Ukraine to have the most amount of leverage possible,” he said.

It is also the thinking of Mike Waltz, the ex-Green Beret taking over the National Security Council.
He argues that a long war of attrition against a much larger power is a doomed strategy for Ukraine. You have to raise the ante.

“I think it’s absolutely in America’s interest to stop Putin cold. First and foremost, you enforce
the actual energy sanctions on Russia. You flood global markets, and you drive down the price of oil.
His economy and his war machine will dry up very quickly,” he said.
...
Briefings from Mar-a-Lago suggest that Trump will not concede anything beyond Russia’s current conquests,
if that, denying Putin the city of Zaporizhzhia and northern Kherson. He will call for British, French,
and Polish troops at division strength as front-line protectors under Western European Union terms,
a Nato Article 5 guarantee by the back door.

Putin would not get all of his four annexed oblasts, nor a demilitarised and neutral Ukraine.
He would get precious little to justify over 400,000 Russian casualties, deep structural damage
to his economy, and shattered global credibility. A hard sell at home.

So far somewhat speculation but, but Trumps previous nastional security advisor, his upcoming secratary of state (foreign minister) and his upcoming national security advisor seems to back it.

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