STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: We've been looking for clues to President-elect Trump's plans for Russia's war in Ukraine. While campaigning, Trump said he would end the war in a day. That, plus his fondness for Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, led his critics to warn that he could force Ukraine to surrender. Eliot Cohen doubts that's really going to happen. He's an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank here in Washington.
ELIOT COHEN: The truth is nobody really knows exactly what Trump thinks about all this, including conceivably Donald Trump. I don't think he intends to simply throw Ukraine under the bus.
INSKEEP: Cohen thinks that because he's been reading the words of advisers that Trump is bringing into the administration. His chosen envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, co-authored a paper outlining terms for a provisional piece. The idea is to freeze the conflict in place and give security guarantees to Ukraine.
COHEN: The big questions in all that are first, what kind of leverage will we use on the Russians? Does Vladimir Putin really want this kind of deal? I'm not so sure. And does this really yield peace in any meaningful sense? I think that's where people are - can be most easily misled.
INSKEEP: He said something about freezing the conflict along the current lines, meaning a ceasefire where the troops are now, and effectively, Russia gets to keep the territory it's seized so far. Would that be part of it?
COHEN: That's the impression you get from the document. He stipulated it doesn't mean that Ukraine has to acknowledge those territories as permanently lost. So in other words, it's kind of a ceasefire. It ends up being a frozen conflict and an unresolved set of issues from a...
INSKEEP: Ah, so it ends up becoming...
COHEN: ...Political point of view, but the point...
INSKEEP: ...Something like Kashmir is between India and Pakistan. There are armies there. There's a line of control...
COHEN: Right.
INSKEEP: ...A dividing line, but nobody really acknowledges a final settlement of anything?
COHEN: I mean, that's, you know, that's true of a lot of places. It's - in a way, it's true of Cyprus. It's true of the Koreas. You know, there are plenty of precedents for that. Now, in this case, the problem is that the asymmetry in sizes is enormous between Russia and Ukraine, and it's quite clear that, to me, at any rate, that that is not going to be enough for Vladimir Putin. I think Vladimir Putin really wants to destroy Ukraine as an independent entity, take more of the territory, but also, if there is a government in Kyiv, have it as a kind of a puppet government that accommodates Russia's wishes, and I don't think that's acceptable to the Ukrainians.
INSKEEP: Well, now, you did talk then about getting the Russians to the table. Michael Waltz, the president-elect's chosen national security adviser, has talked about that on NPR just before the November election. He said that the U.S. could do a lot more to pressure Russia. Here's some of his words.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
MICHAEL WALTZ: First and foremost, you would enforce the actual energy sanctions on Russia. Putin is selling more oil and gas now than he did pre-war through China and Russia. We have leverage, like taking the handcuffs off of the long-range weapons we provided Ukraine as well.
INSKEEP: Can the United States put a lot more pressure on Russia than it already has done?
COHEN: I think it can. What we have not done is we have not really been willing to enforce really ferocious secondary sanctions. That is where you're sanctioning people who do business with the entity that you have sanctioned.
INSKEEP: Secondary sanctions, meaning sanctions on China, sanctions on India, which have been buying cheap Russian oil.
COHEN: Right. The Russian economy doesn't appear to be on the verge of a collapse, but interest rates are, like, around 21% or more. It's clear that that system is under a lot of economic pressure, and you could crank that up. On the military side, you can press the Germans, say, to provide more long-range missiles, you could remove all restraints on the use of things like ATACMS, the long-range missiles that the Biden administration has begun to provide. That would have a psychological effect on the Russians if nothing else.
INSKEEP: Are we in a situation where Ukraine really needs a peace deal - they can't hold out forever?
COHEN: They need relief in a number of ways, and I think that they're exhausted, as they should be. They've suffered very heavily losses. I can imagine them conceivably accepting a partial deal, which they would be very anxious about. But if it gave them certain things, if it gave them Western security guarantees, if it gave them substantial economic reconstruction, and if it didn't foreclose the future in terms of the territories the Russians have occupied, it's conceivable to me that they might take it.
INSKEEP: Eliot Cohen, it's a pleasure talking with you again. Thanks so much.
COHEN: Same here.
INSKEEP: Cohen is a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
