The war between Russia and Ukraine will end in the same way the Cold War ended: through negotiations between the nations' leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer predicted on Newsmax on Sunday.
"There was a time when both President [Ronald] Reagan and President [Mikhail] Gorbachev had to sit down at Reykjavik, Iceland, and get to the bottom line to resolve things," Shaffer told Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend." "I think that's only going to be the thing that gets to the point, where we can get those two men together and try to resolve what's going on."
His comments come after President Donald Trump on Friday announced he ordered the positioning of two nuclear submarines toward Russia after what he referred to as "provocative statements" from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Shaffer said that ordinarily, the whereabouts of America's nuclear submarines are not made public, but in this case, Trump chose to do so as a show of force.
"Let's be clear regarding the nuclear submarines," Shaffer said. "They don't have to be close to work. As a matter of fact, it's kind of ironic that we're talking about this. This is clearly Cold War posturing. And essentially, if you ever watch the movie 'The Hunt for Red October,' it's kind of something out of that."
And Trump's move, Shaffer said, even while it was escalatory, was "meant to be deescalatory."
"By doing this, he's hoping that the rhetoric will settle down a little bit," he added. "As he said in his interview with Rob Finnerty, I don't think it's going to necessarily work immediately. Right now, the Russians believe they're winning in Ukraine. The issue regarding the new sanctions is coming up, and we'll have to see what happens when the new sanctions are announced, which I think is going to come this week."
Shaffer also on Sunday slammed France, the U.K., and Canada for considering the recognition of a Palestinian state to "reward Hamas' bad behavior," particularly after the release of hostage videos showing two people who remain captured by the terrorists.
"These videos are horrific," he said. "There's one other video I saw where Hamas was forcing one of the hostages to dig his own grave. This is inhuman, and so this should reinforce our need to help the Israelis immediately, move aggressively to end Hamas, and at the same time support the Gaza Foundation to get in and give food to the Palestinian people."
Hamas, meanwhile, has sold the food and international aid that has come in, making $500 million in the past two years to run its efforts, said Shaffer.
"This should motivate everybody to just go in and end Hamas once and for all," he added.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.