Politics
JUST IN: Trump Shuts Down Zelenskyy’s Request For Nukes
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated this week that if the United States can’t make a fast track toward his country joining NATO, he has other security options to keep Kyiv safe. And those would be nuclear weapons.
However, the U.S. is not exactly chomping at the bit to give the thumbs up to those terms.
“The chance of them getting their nuclear weapons back is somewhere between slim and none,” retired Lt. General Keith Kellogg, special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, said during a recent interview with Fox News Digital. “Let’s be honest about it, we both know that’s not going to happen.”
If we travel back in time to 1994, just after the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine made an agreement to give Russia its nuclear weapons in exchange for reassurances from the Russians, the U.S., and the U.K. that its sovereignty and independence would be honored.
That treaty has been shredded due to the now multiple invasions of the country by Russian military forces. As a result of this violation, Zelenskyy said he believes Ukraine should be given back its nuclear arms, particularly if there is no quick path to NATO membership.
“But Kellogg, the man tasked by President Donald Trump to help bring an end to the three-year war, said rearming Ukraine with nuclear weapons is a non-starter,” the report said.
“Remember, the president said we’re a government of common sense,” he said during the interview. “When somebody says something like that, look at the outcome or the potential. That’s using your common sense.”
Zelenskyy stated on Tuesday that he is willing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin face-to-face if that has any real chance of ending the war between the two nations. However, as of this writing, Putin has not agreed to meet with the Ukrainian president.
Over the weekend, Trump stated that preliminary talks have started with both nations. Kellogg himself stated that Russia and Ukraine are going to have to get comfortable with the idea of making concessions in order to reach a peace agreement.
What sort of compromises both sides might need to make has been a subject kept under wraps by the current administration, especially when it comes to talk of NATO membership. Kellogg would not provide any details about where the president currently sits on the issue.
“That’s one of the reasons I’m going next week to Europe, to actually see them face-to-face,” he commented. “I can bring that back to the president and say, ‘OK, Mr. President, this is their concern. This is what the issues are.’”
“As you develop the plans to end this carnage, you have to make sure that you’ve got the feel of everybody in play,” Kellogg explained. “Once we get to have these face-to-face discussions, then you can really kind of work … on concessions.”
Kellogg is also set to put pressure on NATO allies in order to get them to increase defense spending and, as directed by our president, start doing some of the heavy lifting when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
