Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt and retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Newsmax on Thursday that President Donald Trump is "the only guy" who can bring Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy together to negotiate an end to the war between their two countries.
Putin didn't show up on Thursday for proposed direct peace talks with Zelenskyy in Turkey, sending a Russian delegation to Istanbul in his stead. Zelenskyy was waiting for Putin in the capital, Ankara, after challenging the Russian leader to face-to-face negotiations.
Asked what happened in Turkey, Shaffer said, "There is no there, there and that's what we saw."
"The two competing tracks, Minsk-3, driven by [special envoy to Ukraine and Russia Keith] Kellogg and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and the Europeans, has a huge amount of daylight between what Russia wants, which is Istanbul plus, which was negotiated at the very same location, by the way, in Istanbul back in 2022," Shaffer said on "The Chris Salcedo Show."
"So, unless President Trump somehow gets … all three of them [Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy] in the same room, we're just not going to get anywhere. So, until there's a there, there, Putin is not going to show up and, obviously, President Trump is not going to show up."
Signed in 2014 and 2015, the first two Minsk agreements brokered ceasefires between Kyiv and Moscow over the status of the eastern Donbas region in Ukraine. Both sides accused each other of breaking the deal.
In an exchange with reporters in Doha, Qatar, on the third day of his Middle East visit, Trump said he wasn't surprised that Putin decided not to attend.
"I didn't think it was possible for Putin to go if I'm not there," Trump reportedly said.
Holt said that "the only leverage that exists with Russia and with Putin is economic leverage" because "their economy is vaporized."
"They have to get access to European markets before too long," Holt said. "And militarily, they're on the cusp of a massive offensive which is going to serve their needs. They're just going to go impose terms. What President Trump can try to do is to use the economic levers to hold them back.
"It could well be, in the Putin calculus, that they cannibalize themselves economically and then get what they want militarily and then go forward and say, 'OK, now we're ready to negotiate and talk and get access to the European Commons.' That does look like what their calculation is right now.
"President Trump is the only guy who's going to try to get this ended," he added.
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