Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker told Newsmax on Friday that President Donald Trump deserves credit for breaking months of diplomatic deadlock and compelling world leaders — including Russian President Vladimir Putin — to engage in direct talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
In an interview with “The Record With Greta Van Susteren,” Volker agreed that Trump has been the driving force on peace talks, an effort culminating in Friday’s summit with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska.
Volker contrasted the current moment with the stalemate that persisted less than a year ago.
“If you think back to seven, eight months ago, this was stagnant,” he said. “Nobody was meeting, nobody was talking. There was no sincere effort going on to end the war or even just have a ceasefire ... it was all just more of the same.”
Volker credited Trump with forcing a shift in momentum.
“President Trump has forced this conversation,” he said. “He’s gotten everybody engaged — from European leaders to [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy to Putin, Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, the EU — everybody at the highest level is now engaged because President Trump has pushed this.”
Still, Volker warned that engagement alone would not be enough.
“I think Putin will only respond to pressure, and we haven’t put pressure on yet,” he cautioned. “But I think that may be coming.”
Volker also drew a parallel between Trump and Putin in their leadership styles.
“They are really the masters of their governments,” he said. “They call all the shots, they make the decisions. The other people there can be spokespeople ... but Trump runs everything directly himself. He does it on instinct. He reads people.”
As for Putin, Volker said the Russian leader is also operating from a position of consolidated power. “No one can tell him anything that he doesn’t want to hear,” he noted.
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