Former U.S. Army officer and military adviser Dan Rice told Newsmax on Tuesday that the recent summit between the U.S. and Russia made ‘tremendous progress" towards an end to the invasion of Ukraine.
President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last Friday for a high-profile summit aimed at reaching a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
When asked on "National Report" how Trump managed to get Putin to agree to the meeting, Rice said, "It really boils down to leadership."
He added, "President Trump has shown incredible leadership in moving this forward to get to this stage. We're cautiously optimistic, Ukrainians are cautiously optimistic."
Rice noted that "You can't trust Putin, ever," adding, "He's a liar and a war criminal. But President Trump has really rallied the Europeans together and I'm really proud of what the Europeans and all that NATO has done."
He went on to praise Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders, including NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, at the White House on Monday, saying "For them to come to Washington, D.C., on two days' notice after the Alaska summit was absolutely incredible."
Rice said, "But it's really leadership. And President Trump really wants to end this war. President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians obviously want to end this invasion. And really, we've seen tremendous progress in the last two weeks.
"Let's hope for a meeting between the war criminal Putin and President Zelenskyy soon to move the ball forward and then hopefully a trilateral [agreement] to end the war."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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