Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Newsmax on Thursday that next week's scheduled meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin should be "the beginning of the end of the war."
The Kremlin has announced that the two leaders will meet in person for the first time in Trump's second term. Moscow has rejected Trump's idea of a three-way summit with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, maintaining its opposition to such talks.
"I like to believe it's the beginning of the end of the war. The only way this ends is if President Trump sits down face to face with Putin and they make a deal. I'm skeptical about Zelenskyy being there for anything more than comic relief.
"So, I think it's most important that they sit down. And obviously, one of the things that that that president that Putin has said is that President Trump is willing to listen to, quote unquote, root causes, which is why they're still talking. No doubt the sanctions are going to have an effect," he said on "The Chris Salcedo Show."
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt joined the conversation and said the world is nearing a point of no return so he hopes the talks are productive.
"We are so close to the very edge of a very bad war, and people have to understand what that means. And so, I could not be happier that President Trump and his team behind the scenes have been negotiating the outlines in the four corners of a deal," he said.
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James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.