The plan to rearm Ukraine's military revealed by President Donald Trump on Monday might not move the needle to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, but the threat of secondary sanctions could lead to a ceasefire, Kurt Volker told Newsmax on Monday.
After meeting with NATO Secretary-General Marc Rutte at the White House, Trump said the U.S. would help Europe send more weapons to Ukraine and warned that Russia would be hit by "very severe tariffs" if there is no peace deal in 50 days.
"Putin is now on some historical mission, as he sees it, to rebuild the Russian Empire," Volker, U.S. ambassador to NATO in the George W. Bush administration, told "American Agenda."
"And he wants to go down in Russian history as one of the great leaders, alongside Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, who accumulated Russian lands. And that's how he sees himself.
"So, I don't see him agreeing to anything. However, I do believe that he can be pressured into a ceasefire if we squeeze his finances enough. We need to implement these secondary sanctions and let Putin see how his oil and gas revenue dwindles, and he doesn't have enough money to keep the war going. Then I think we might actually get a ceasefire, even though we'll never have a real peace agreement," Volker said.
The Senate is also working on a bipartisan sanctions bill that reportedly would give Trump a diplomatic sledgehammer by letting him impose tariffs of up to 500% on countries aiding Russia, naming China, India, and Brazil as key enablers of Putin's war machine.
"Russia already is sanctioned," said Volker, a special representative to Ukraine in Trump's first term. "They shouldn't be selling their oil and gas, but they're evading those sanctions by going through countries that don't honor them. And that could be China, for example. It could be India, a few others.
"So, if we tell those countries, look, if you trade with Russia on this stuff, then we're going to sanction you 100% on all of your goods, that is going to be a very big dissuasion for those countries from going ahead with that trade with Russia. So, they won't do it, and the result will be Russia's revenue will dry up. … Having that legislation already passed and those powers in hand will be a powerful signal to Putin that all President Trump has to do is pull the trigger."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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