‘Poisoned chalice’: Former NATO commander flags 'ominous’ Trump remark about Ukraine

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, warned that President Donald Trump’s latest comments about Ukraine point toward a peace deal that would hand Russia a large share of the country.

During his “60 Minutes” interview, Trump complained that the U.S. had “got nothing” for the weapons it sent Ukraine. When interviewer Ross Douthat countered that the U.S. “got Ukrainian independence for it,” Trump disagreed.

“You haven’t gotten anything yet," Trump said. "Let’s see how it all works out.”

Trump said he expected a deal to get done, adding, “they’re going to end up with a little bit different shape, Ukraine.”

" CNN News Central" anchor Kate Bolduan asked Stavridis what he heard in that phrase and what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky might hear.

“Well, it sounds ominous,” Stavridis said.

He said the remark likely refers to the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin now controls, the eastern stretch linking Crimea to Russia.

“It’s kind of a trade land for peace deal, if you will,” Stavridis said. “Certainly Zelensky will hate that deal. I hate that deal. We all should hate that deal.”

He added that Putin would also be unhappy with that outcome.

“He doesn’t want that 20 percent. He wants the whole thing,” Stavridis said.

He warned that whoever ends up with the territory would be inheriting a wasteland. “That 20 percent, Kate, has been a battlefield for four years,” he said. “It’s full of unexploded ordnance, burned-out villages, broken bridges, on and on. It’s a poisoned chalice, in my view.”

Still, Stavridis predicted that’s “probably the deal we’re going to get to.” He said the most important part would be what Ukraine gets in return – full independence, a path to the European Union, reconstruction funds, and “NATO-like” security guarantees, though probably not NATO membership right away.

Those guarantees, he said, would have to mean that “if Putin decides to try and take another bite to reshape the form of Ukraine again, there would be real teeth” in a European and U.S. response.

Stavridis also suggested Trump’s sudden interest in foreign deals is about his troubles at home.

“The president, having had a very tough midterm, obviously, and real domestic constraints, is looking to go abroad to find some problems he can solve,” he said. He added that the negotiations ahead will be “very difficult.”

Bolduan closed by noting that getting a deal done “might involve staying on message and having a clear strategy on how to get from point A to point Z.”

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