Those of you who follow right wing political history are certainly familiar with their old lament about “the sell-out at Yalta” in which Roosevelt and Churchill allegedly old out to Stalin by allowing him to continue to occupy eastern Europe. It was bullshit of course. But it looks like Trump’s on his way to actually doing it:
The Trump administration has been secretly working in consultation with Russia to draft a new plan to end the war in Ukraine, U.S. and Russian officials tell Axios.
The 28-point U.S. plan is inspired by President Trump’s successful push for a deal in Gaza. A top Russian official told Axios he’s optimistic about the plan. It’s not yet clear how Ukraine and its European backers will feel about it.
The plan’s 28 points fall into four general buckets, sources tell Axios: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine.
- It’s unclear how the plan approaches contentious issues such as territorial control in eastern Ukraine — where Russian forces have been inching forward, but still control far less land than the Kremlin has demanded.
Behind the scenes: Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is leading the drafting of the plan and has discussed it extensively with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, a U.S. official said.
- Dmitriev, who runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and is also deeply involved in diplomacy over Ukraine, told Axios in an interview on Monday that he spent three days huddled with Witkoff and other members of Trump’s team when Dmitriev visited Miami from Oct. 24-26.
- Dmitriev expressed optimism about the deal’s chances of success because, unlike past efforts, “we feel the Russian position is really being heard.”
Dmitriev told Axios the basic idea was to take the principles Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to in Alaska in August and produce a proposal “to address the Ukraine conflict, but also how to restore U.S.-Russia ties [and] address Russia’s security concerns.”
[…]Dmitriev said this effort was entirely unrelated to the U.K.-led push to draft a Gaza-style peace plan for Ukraine, which he said had no chance of success because it disregards Russia’s positions.
The Russian envoy said the U.S. side was now in the process of explaining the “benefits” of its current approach to the Ukrainians and the Europeans.
Sounds great. Give Russia what it wants and everything’s copacetic.