Russia still expects a significant surrender from Ukraine, said Janis Sarts, director of NATO's Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, in an interview on the Latvian television program "Morning Panorama," LETA reports.
He noted that he would not draw conclusions about achieving peace yet, as "we have not actually seen Russia at the negotiating table." "Thus, at least for now, it still seems to me that it expects quite a serious surrender from Ukraine with the possibility, if necessary, to continue such attacks. And I don’t think Ukraine will agree to that," Sarts said.
Sarts also emphasized that this is not so much about Russia's position as it is about the position of one person — the head of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
"In my opinion, their goal is to achieve a peace or pause in which Ukraine will be weak and weakened, and then they can attempt to reassert their influence in Ukraine by other means," he noted.
He also added that there is still a struggle between two resources. This is the resource of Russia, which is increasingly supported by China, and this partly explains why Russia has been able to wage war for so long. And Ukraine, whose resources are limited but supported by Europe and the Western world — at the moment, primarily by Europe. The question is who will run out of these resources first, Sarts said.
As previously reported, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is quite optimistic about the possibility of ending the Russian-Ukrainian war, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said on Monday.
Trump's special representative, Steve Whitcoff, traveled to Moscow on Monday, where he is scheduled to meet with the Russian dictator on Tuesday.
"It seems to me that the administration is very optimistic," Levitt said, adding that the president and his team "have been working very hard on these efforts, and they really want this war to end."
"Just yesterday they had very good negotiations with the Ukrainians in Florida, and now, of course, Special Representative Whitcoff is heading to Russia," the White House press secretary added.
The initial 28-point plan proposed by the U.S. was favorable to Russia. It required Ukraine to hand over occupied territories to Russia, as well as those that Russia had not even captured. Kyiv was also required to commit to never joining NATO and to reduce its army.
At the negotiations involving representatives from the U.S., Ukraine, and Europe that took place a week ago in Geneva, the U.S. plan was modified to take into account Ukraine's position. However, Bloomberg reports that the negotiations are still being stalled by the same obstacles as before.
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