Blaine Holt to Newsmax: US Has 'Leverage' for Ukraine-Russia Agreement

The United States has been throwing weapons and money at the war in Ukraine for three years with no solution, but now, with President Donald Trump's administration, there is "all of the leverage" to reach an agreement to stop the hostilities, retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt said on Newsmax Sunday.

"Two elements are now present where they weren't present before with the arrival of the Trump administration," Holt said on Newsmax's "Sunday Agenda." "What we've got now is strategy and diplomacy, all of the leverage."

He added that if viewers listened to Vice President JD Vance's "brilliant speech" in Munich last week, they would have heard that "all the leverage lies with the United States and the Trump administration to end this war."

Further, all of the actors, including Ukraine, Moscow, and the European Union all have reasons to align to end the war, and now, work must be done to get Ukraine to understand that "battlefield realities" will drive the peace talks' outcome, said Holt.

"There are endless leaders in front of President Zelenskyy to say, these are the cards you have and this is what it looks like going forward," he added. "There's an economy in shambles to repair. The Russian economy needs to get put back together again and we've all got to come together to reconstruct the new Ukraine."

Meanwhile, there are reports that Trump wants the United States to get half of Ukraine's rare earth mineral rights to reimburse the United States for its assistance since the Russian invasion, and Putin is saying he wants to claim part of Europe. 

"Unfortunately, money is driving such a sick element of this," Holt said. "Several times during the last year, we heard senators on both sides of the aisle in the United States saying, Look at the jobs this is creating in the United States. Look at the economic benefits. And as someone who's been to meaningless wars that end in nothing, I can tell you that spending blood and treasure so others get billions and we can pat ourselves on the back and say we created a job is not only immoral, it's a crime against humanity."

But Trump, he said, is "cleaning up the ledger."

"And if it comes down to it that the Ukrainians have the ability to share some of the means to defray some of the cost of our support, well, that's completely moral," said Holt.

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