NY Post Tries to Put Anti-Russian Spin on Trump Action on Ukraine
NY Post Tries to Put Anti-Russian Spin on Trump Action on Ukraine
Feb. 9—With some big moves taking place for a peace deal in Ukraine under the initiation of President Donald Trump, the virulently Russo-phobic New York Post is doing its best spin them as moves against Russia and Vladimir Putin. The Post has in recent days dug out analysts from under geopolitical rocks to find "experts" to claim that the main obstacle to peace is Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite public statements by Putin that he wants to end the war as quickly as possible and looks forward towards Trump's initiatives in that direction.
The Post interviewed Trump's Ukraine peace envoy Keith Kellogg Feb. 6 and choose to lead its story with his remarks that Trump was prepared, if necessary, to force Putin to the negotiating table. Sources report the White House believes that the Russian leader is more than willing to negotiate as soon as they can bring NATO's sock puppet Ukranian dictator Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the table. But the Post leads with a statement solicited by them that Trump is ready to double down on sanctions, and other coercive measures, to get Russia to talk peace. Sanctions enforcement against Russia are “only about a three” on a scale of 1 to 10 on how painful the economic pressure can be, Kellogg said. “You could really increase the sanctions—especially the latest sanctions [targeting oil production and exports,]” he said. “It’s opened the aperture way high to do something.”
Kellogg told the Post that a week ago, Trump gathered his “whole confirmed team” of advisers and cabinet members focused on national security—from Vice President JD Vance, to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—in the Oval Office. There, Kellogg said, they discussed how to use all elements of national power to end the war. “Solving the Russia-Ukraine war is really all hands on deck for the entire administration, so a whole-of-government approach,” he said. “We got the national security team talking about it—the president, vice president, national security adviser, secretaries of State [and] Treasury, National Security Council, working all together.”
Though Kellogg said Ukraine will need to keep up its military pressure on Russia ahead of negotiations, he lambasted former President Joe Biden’s strategy of promising to provide Ukraine aid “as long as it takes, as much as it takes” without cranking up the pressure on other elements of national power. “That is not a strategy, it’s a bumper sticker,” he said. "At a very high level, I said, OK, [the Biden administration was] really not prosecuting the war or helping out Ukraine as well as they should have … getting Ukraine the necessary arms or strategy at the right time.
While the president this week has floated possible deal-making with Ukraine over access to its rare earth elements critical to U.S. national security, Kellogg said the president first concern is "to stop the killing—just stop it—and then you go from there” on future negotiations. “Very frankly, both sides in any negotiation have to give; that’s just the way it is in negotiations,” he said later. “And that’s where you have to find out, ‘OK, where is this at? What’s acceptable? Is it gonna be agreeable to everybody? No. Is it gonna be acceptable to everybody? No. But you try to run this balance."
The outline of a Trump peace plan, leaked first in the Ukrainian press and then by Newsweek and the Daily Mail, calls for an Easter (April 20th) ceasefire.
As for Kellogg’s travel schedule, his spokesman, Ludovic Hood, would not confirm anything, beyond his attendance at the Munich Security Conference, set for Feb. 14-16. “We’re going to Munich, and then we’re looking at some other travel,” Hood told TASS when asked about Kellogg’s potential trip to Russia and Ukraine. He explained that information on any specific plans would be made public at a later date. “Nothing to announce except what’s on the general’s Twitter account,” Hood, who is a career diplomat, emphasized.
Zelenskyy's office said yesterday that Kellogg would be coming to the Ukraine "next week," but that was before comments from Trump that indicated that he wanted to meet with Zelenskyy in Washington as soon as "next week."