A Fox News analyst pointed out on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t made “a single concession” with respect to ending his ongoing war against Ukraine.
Retired General Jack Keane made the observation during an interview on Fox News, where he frequently appears as a national security analyst. Keane is also the chairman of the Institute for the Study of War.
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin for comment via telephone outside regular business hours.
Why It Matters
Keane’s comments came shortly after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House to discuss the status of the U.S.’s ongoing effort to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, which Putin launched in 2022 without provocation.
Trump hosted Putin for a summit at a U.S. military base in Alaska on Friday, in which he tilted toward Putin’s demands that Ukraine make concessions over land seized by Russia. Trump had previously suggested the possibility of “land swaps” between Russia and Ukraine, though Putin has not offered to give up any Russian land as part of a deal.
What To Know
“We’d like to see this thing go forward and get this process moving in the right direction,” Keane said, referring to President Donald Trump‘s efforts to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine as the war between the two countries continues grinding on. Putin launched the war in February 2022, when he invaded Ukraine without provocation.
Keane went on to note, however, that “we do have a person on the other side who, up to now, hasn’t made a single concession of any consequence.”
“And that’s the reality that President Trump, Zelensky and the Europeans are dealing with,” he added.
Zelensky came to the White House flanked by European leaders and his Monday meeting with Trump came nearly six months after his first disastrous Oval Office visit of Trump’s second term.
After his meeting with Zelensky, Trump scrapped the possibility of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine in favor of a comprehensive peace deal.
“I don’t think you need a ceasefire. You know, if you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war,” Trump told reporters. “I didn’t do any ceasefires. And I know that it might be good to have, but I can also understand strategically why, well, you know, one country or the other wouldn’t want it.”
Keane was asked about Trump’s comments on Fox News and hypothesized that the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, “came back from his meetings” with Putin and “Putin hadn’t changed one iota in terms of a ceasefire. And the president and his team had to think through that, all right, do we crush his economy now or is there still a chance, even with a ceasefire, that maybe we can cut some kind of a deal here?”
The former general also highlighted the significance of the U.S. and European countries potentially giving Ukraine security guarantees, saying, “How comprehensive are they? How much teeth are they going to have in them? And certainly, President Zelensky is going to make an assessment of that in terms of does that satisfy him in establishing real deterrence with Putin?”
“Because if it does … what that gives Zelensky, then, is a lot of running room in terms of options,” Keane said. “It’s possible, then he could give up land and maybe get some others in return if he believes there is a real deterrence there and a real red line that will hold Putin accountable.”
Keane went on to say that Trump and Zelensky’s meeting would be a “telltale sign if it’s worth going forward or not,” referring to negotiations to end the war. “And does Zelensky have a counteroffer that sort of makes some sense? Let’s all be hopeful about it. We’d like to see this thing go forward and get this process moving in the right direction. But we do have a person on the other side who up to now hasn’t made a single concession of any consequence. And that’s the reality that President Trump, Zelensky, and the Europeans are dealing with.”
What People Are Saying
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, told the Russian state news agency Tass that Putin “spoke in favor” of continuing talks between Russia and Ukraine about ending the war, adding: They discussed “the idea of raising the level of the direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.”
Zelensky told reporters in the Oval Office following his talks with Trump: “I think that we had a very good conversation with President Trump, very good. And it really was the best one, or, sorry, maybe the best one will be in the future.”
Robert B. Murrett, a professor of practice of international affairs at Syracuse University, told Newsweek he agrees with Zelensky’s position not to give up Ukraine’s claims of Crimea and other regions Russia claims to have annexed: “Most everybody has recognized—and you don’t want to give up your negotiating positions before you actually negotiate—that the prospects of those five provinces in play probably fall into three different categories. Crimea on one extreme, and then Luhansk and Donetsk, and then Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Crimea was never on the cards for being returned to Ukraine. On the other hand, for Ukraine to admit that and concede it on a permanent basis is a different circumstance as it will be for the others.”
What Happens Next
Trump announced Monday evening that he had begun the process of setting up a trilateral meeting between himself, Zelensky and Putin. The time and location of the summit has not been announced.
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