POLITICS: Peace is not an option for Russia as Trump’s chosen envoy preps travel to Kyiv

While retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg – President-elect Donald Trump’s chosen special envoy for Ukraine and Russia – prepares to travel to Kyiv and several other European capitals in January to discuss options to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, the Kremlin is setting conditions to win the war now.

Peace is not an option for Moscow. Only NATO capitulation.

In rejecting Kellogg’s plan first proffered in April, Vassily Nebenz, Russia’s representative to the United Nations, declared on Monday: “No schemes to freeze the [Ukrainian] conflict are agreeable to Russia.”

Dmitry Medvedev recently said out loud what Russian President Vladimir Putin and his comrades in Moscow are thinking, “Today, Ukraine faces a choice to be with Russia or to disappear from the world map altogether.”

Nonetheless, Putin says he is ready for peace talks “anytime” with Trump. During his annual end-of-year press conference on Thursday, he stated “We have always said that we are ready for negotiations and compromises.”

Yet Putin’s peace terms remain unrealistic. He has no intention of allowing Ukraine to remain a free and sovereign nation.

Russia is postured for war, not peace talks. Ahead of Trump’s second presidency, the Kremlin is doubling down on its relentless assaults on Ukrainian defensive positions, civilian population centers, and energy infrastructure.

Putin’s saber-rattling is also increasing. During his end-of-year conference, he highlighted the use of the Oreshnik hypersonic missile in Ukraine, boasting it was unstoppable while dismissing Western skepticism about the missile. He even challenged the U.S. and NATO to a “high-tech missile duel.”

Putin sardonically proposed that Washington and Brussels select a “target for destruction” in Kyiv and see if NATO could “stop it in time.”

Echoing Nazi Germany, the Oreshnik hypersonic missile has become Putin’s equivalent of Adolf Hitler’s V2 rocket. Underscoring his psych-op against the West, Putin on Monday announced the “serial production” of the Oreshnik missiles for use by Russia and its allies including Belarus according to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Meanwhile, the war along the 700-mile frontline in Ukraine is intensifying. Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian hub, is in danger of falling to the Russians in the east – and the Armed Forces of Ukraine are beginning to buckle under the weight of Moscow’s World War I-like ‘meat-grinder’ frontal assaults.

Putin is also increasingly involving his ‘arsenals of evil’ allies. Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder recently acknowledged that “North Korean troops have entered combat in the Russian region of Kursk and already [are incurring] casualties.”

Last month Ryder noted that as many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed to the Kursk Oblast as part of a Russian counteroffensive believed to number 50,000+ troops. Pyongyang is sending weapons too.

A video posted on X shows North Korean M-1989 170mm Koksan self-propelled guns in transit via rail in Russia. According to Defense Express, “at least a dozen self-propelled artillery systems are visible in the footage.”

The Koksan gun is a formidable weapon system that has a firing rate of approximately two rounds per minute and an onboard ammunition storage capacity of 12 rounds. It can range 40 kilometers with conventional high-explosive (HE) rounds; and 60 kilometers with rocket-assisted projectiles (RAP).

Putin has a plan to win the war. The U.S. and NATO still do not. After 34 months of ‘just enough’ support to defend Ukraine, the Biden Administration has left Ukraine in a precarious and increasingly deteriorating position.

If left unchecked, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals will be forced to continue incrementally ceding terrain in the Donbas and AFU-occupied Kursk Oblast over the upcoming winter. More Ukrainian civilians will be intentionally targeted and killed by Russian missiles and drones.

Trump and Kellogg must immediately change this dangerous trajectory they are inheriting from the Biden Administration or there will not be a need for a peace deal; rather, an obituary.

If not, then Medvedev will be proven correct and Ukraine will simply disappear from the world map – and with it European security.

Peace now on Putin’s terms is fool’s gold and will only likely mean an even wider war in Europe in five to ten years. President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was geo-strategically bad enough. Losing Ukraine would be far worse – and only Trump and Kellogg can prevent that from happening.

Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.