The Trump administration has "badly underestimated" Russian President Vladimir Putin's determination to finish the war against Ukraine and NATO allies, and the only way to convince him to agree to a ceasefire is to arm the Ukrainians so they can stop him, retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO supreme allied commander, told Newsmax.
"I don't think there's any progress toward a ceasefire," Clark told Newsmax's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" Friday, commenting after President Donald Trump earlier in the day ordered the positioning of two nuclear submarines after what he referred to as "provocative statements" from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
"If you really wanted to stop what's going on, you would airlift a bunch of weapons and ammunition into Ukraine — or at least as close to Ukraine as you could get it — so the Ukrainians can stop the Russian attack cold on the ground," he added. "That's the way to persuade Mr. Putin that he needs a ceasefire."
Clark told Van Susteren that he was glad to see Trump respond to the nuclear threat, but "no one knows where these submarines are anyway."
Typically, the Pentagon does not disclose the location of U.S. nuclear submarines, as they are often on secret missions to surveil Russian and Chinese submarines.
Putin, said Clark, has been clear about his endgame, and "you have to take him at his word."
"Finishing the job means swallowing all of Ukraine, plus the Baltic states, and maybe Moldova and Georgia," he said. "Take [Putin] at his word, but stop him directly. Don't get drawn into some sort of nuclear rhetoric ... Go put the weapons on the ground that the Ukrainians are asking for.
"They need artillery ammunition. They need long-range strike capacity. They need intelligence to hit these missile launchers inside Russia that are devastating Kyiv right now. And they need the missiles to do it."
The United States has the firepower to stop the war in Ukraine, but hasn't shared it, the retired general added.
"We keep talking now about withdrawing forces from Europe, and it's just encouraging Mr. Putin to keep on going," said Clark. "We've got what we need to stop him, but we can't without directly confronting Russia and saying, 'Look, look, bud, this is over.'''
Meanwhile, despite Trump's demands for a ceasefire, Putin is targeting the civilian population in Kyiv, as well as trying to keep international support from coming into the Ukrainian capital, Clark said.
"He's trying to encourage the government to leave," he continued. "He's trying to depopulate the northeast. But this is part of a three-directional Russian program. It's to advance on the ground in the northeast, in Pokrovsk, in the center, and then take Odesa. It's to terrorize the civilian population and to terrorize NATO so NATO can't intervene."
If Trump really wants to stop the war, he continued, "you've got to stop talking about it; start putting the resources into Ukraine."
Putin, meanwhile, is winning on the battlefield, but won't back down unless he feels like he can "get a better deal."
"He's a pragmatic man, but right now he's winning on the battlefield. And he's mortgaged his reputation with the Russian leadership and Russian people that he's going to succeed," said Clark. "So he would have to find an excuse to say, 'I'm taking a break on this.' And right now, he doesn't seem to see the need to do that. He won't see that need unless we put the resources on the ground."
Clark said he was encouraged that the Senate is discussing providing additional military assistance to Ukraine.
"We've got to get it over there because right now, it's slowed to a trickle," he said, noting that what former President Joe Biden had approved is "just not going in there."
"The Ukrainians are desperate for artillery ammunition right now in Pokrovsk," Clark added. "They don't have it. We have it. We can put it in."
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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.
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