Donald Trump’s pledge to end Russia’s war in Ukraine is doomed to failure if the US president-elect does not involve broader talks on Moscow’s security concerns, an influential hardliner close to the Kremlin has warned.
Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian tycoon who is subject to western sanctions, told the Financial Times that President Vladimir Putin was likely to reject a peace plan proposal by Trump’s recently nominated special envoy for the conflict, Keith Kellogg.
“Kellogg comes to Moscow with his plan, we take it and then tell him to screw himself, because we don’t like any of it. That’d be the whole negotiation,” Malofeyev said in an interview at a luxury resort in Dubai. “For the talks to be constructive, we need to talk not about the future of Ukraine, but the future of Europe and the world.”
Malofeyev said Trump could only end the conflict if he reversed Washington’s decision on the use of advanced long-range weapons and removed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from office, then agreed to meet Putin and “discuss all the issues of the global order at the highest level”.
He warned that “the world is on the brink of nuclear war” after Kyiv fired US- and UK-made long-range missiles into Russian territory, and Putin responded by firing an experimental nuclear-capable ballistic missile at Ukraine.
Just days before his nomination, Kellogg told Fox News that Washington should call Russia’s bluff in response to Putin’s recent ballistic missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and threats of further escalation. “[Putin] used [the nuclear-capable missile] for psychological reasons,” Kellogg said. “He didn’t use it because it was militarily effective . . . but because he is kind of saying to the west ‘see what I can do?’” Rather than “back off”, he added, the US and western allies should “lean in, because Putin will not start a nuclear war in Europe”.
Malofeyev, however, argued that if the US did not agree to roll back its support for Ukraine, Russia could fire a tactical nuclear weapon. “There will be a radiation zone nobody will ever go into in our lifetime,” he said. “And the war will be over.”
He said Moscow would only see it as a lasting condition for peace if Trump was willing to discuss other global flashpoints including the wars in the Middle East and Russia’s burgeoning alliance with China — and a US acknowledgment that Ukraine is part of the Kremlin’s core interests.
“We want a long-term peace — some sort of general agreement about the global order,” Malofeyev said. “Trump wants to go down in history, he’ll be 80 soon, he’s a grandfather. Putin’s not 50 any more either. It’ll be the legacy they both leave us.” (Financial Times)