OPINION: The Kremlin De Facto Challenges the US to Surrender

Recent headlines in international media have conveyed the message that “Russia Rejects Donald Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan.”

There have been no officially reported negotiations or meetings, yet the Kremlin has publicly fired its first salvo of “nyet,” and set a demand that any direct peace talks between Russia and the new US administration will not happen with Ukraine’s presence.

In taking this position, Russian President Vladimir Putin is sending a message that – as far as it is concerned – Russia is not really fighting Ukraine but is fighting the US in Ukraine.

This effectively makes the US an official party to the war and allows the Kremlin to back the US against a wall, demanding its capitulation.

With such arrogance, the Russians have raised the stakes of the negotiations, which leads to the key question – will the Trump Administration be so careless as to allow Russia to dictate terms to the United States of America?

Mysterious flights and alleged meetings

Firstly, it is important to note that there has been no confirmation from either the Russian or US side that meetings and talks between top officials from both countries have taken place.

But, connecting the dots between mysterious flights, public statements from Russian officials, as well as social media reports, evidence suggests that the Kremlin may have recently dispatched its envoy to the US, following which the envoy told the American side (bluntly) “nyet.” To everything.

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This meeting allegedly took place between Michael Waltz, Trump’s nominated national security advisor, and the Kremlin’s envoy, none other than Nikolai Patrushev, former FSB director and one of Putin’s closest confidants.

What we know for sure is that some flights from Russia to New York and Washington DC and back took place over the Christmas period and that, shortly afterwards, top Russian officials made comments directly rejecting Trump’s plan for peace.

On Dec. 25, a special airplane flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg. On Dec. 26, flight Il-96 departed from St. Petersburg to New York. Then, after a short break, it flew to Washington. On Dec. 28, the Russian plane flew from Washington to New York again and from there headed to Moscow, according to Flightradar.

The trip was not reported by either the Russian or the American side. After the news of the flight to the US became public, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a hardly convincing explanation – “another rotation of diplomats.” 

Given the upcoming inauguration of Trump’s second term and his promises to enforce peace between Ukraine and Russia, such flights could be much more significant than a rotation.

Statements

Public statements followed out of nowhere from the Russian side. In fact, these statements were a direct response to the Trump Administration’s peace proposals. Such proposals were only alleged to have been put forward, but the Kremlin would not have to comment on them unless they had received them.

At his annual end-of-year press conference on Dec. 26, Putin rejected the idea that deferring Ukraine’s membership of NATO would be satisfactory for Moscow.

Putin said while he does not know the specifics of Trump’s plan, current US President Joe Biden made a similar suggestion back in 2021, to defer Ukraine’s admission by 10 to 15 years.

“In terms of historical distances and timeframes, this is a moment. What difference does it make to us – today, tomorrow, or in 10 years?” he asked, rhetorically, in response to a journalist’s question, and according to a Kremlin transcript of the interaction.

Then, on Dec. 29, the Russian state-owned news agency TASS quoted Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov doubling down on Putin’s rejection of some of Trump’s proposals for Ukraine.

“We are certainly not satisfied with the proposals made by representatives of the president-elect’s team to postpone Ukraine’s membership in NATO for 20 years and to deploy a peacekeeping contingent of UK and European forces in Ukraine,” Lavrov told TASS.

Lavrov added that Russia has not yet received any official “signals” from the US on the “Ukrainian settlement” and that, until Trump’s inauguration in Washington on Jan. 20, only Biden’s outgoing administration was authorized to engage with Moscow.

Social media speculation

Rumor has it that Patrushev’s talks with Waltz were “difficult and tense.” The Russians purportedly “slammed the door,” blaming “the non-constructive position of the American side.”

As the Voice of Ukraine presented in a thread on X, Waltz was to state on behalf of Trump that the US “is ready to pass a law at the state level that in principle will NOT allow Ukraine to join NATO, but only in exchange for:

• the withdrawal of Russian troops to the conditional line 24 – effectively freezing the current line of separation in Donbas
• the liberation of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, subsequently making these territories a “demilitarized zone”

Waltz also allegedly said that the US was ready to sign a new version of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia and China, but if Russia and China refused, the US “would place new such missiles on Russia’s borders.”

Patrushev’s response, according to the same thread, was a total rejection of the proposals as absolutely “not constructive” and not acceptable. Instead, he supposedly presented the following terms:

• “Legislative consolidation of Ukraine’s non-alignment” in exchange for the introduction of “peacekeepers from neutral countries” on both sides of the LBZ (first line of defense)
• The Russian Federation would negotiate the liberation of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions only in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed on Russia (all sanctions – from technology to financial)
• Ukraine’s army and range of weapons would be reduced (to practically leaving Ukraine with no army and no means to defend itself)

Patrushev also allegedly proposed to organize a direct conversation between Putin and Trump, because “without it, a breakthrough in the negotiations may never happen.”

Maybe not accurate but a clear reflection of the Kremlin’s position

So that is what supposedly happened according to the Voice of Ukraine X account. However, even if this report is not wholly accurate, it aligns with Russia’s well-known stance, further confirmed by the public statements made by Putin and Lavrov as quoted above.

Even if Patrushev did not actually visit the US in December, the Kremlin clearly does not want “talks” to include the Ukrainians, which is consistent with its view of the Ukrainian government as a US puppet and “Nazi regime” to be dismantled, and one not to negotiate with.

This position is evident from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said in early December, “there are no grounds for negotiations with Ukraine.” It also aligns with Putin’s mantra as noted above that Russia is fighting the US rather than Ukraine itself. And by perpetuating this narrative, Putin is declaring that Russia and the US are at war.

From that standpoint, Putin wants the US to abandon Ukraine, which would amount to the US admitting that helping Ukraine to defend itself against Russia has been a mistake. And to correct this “mistake”, the US would formally have to surrender to Russia’s demands.

Brazen? It was only to be expected from the Kremlin – a regime capable of invading a sovereign independent country. Putin’s circle is not going to change the narrative because that narrative justifies Putin’s entire policy over the last three years.

The twist with this narrative, is that Putin is directly and openly challenging the US. It raises a question that will define Trump’s second term – is the president elect ready to become a “Cold War-style” president on the scale of his great predecessors? Or is he going will he capitulate to the Kremlin’s demands?

The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.