Vice President J.D. Vance and his allies in the Pentagon sought to cut off Ukraine from arms supplies and pursued a “de facto anti-Ukrainian policy,” while the generals, the CIA and Gen. Keith Kellogg tried to counterbalance these influences, according to a New York Times article about the background of the White House's approach to Ukraine.
In an extensive text, the New York Times revealed many previously unknown details from behind the scenes of American policy towards Ukraine and negotiations with Russia. The newspaper describes, among others: consistent efforts by Vice President J.D. Vance and his allies in key positions in the Pentagon to take actions to stop the flow of weapons to Ukraine, which one top American officer described as a “de facto anti-Ukrainian policy.”
These actions, supported by the head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, were to result in many interruptions in supplies, including an over three-month interruption in the supply of artillery ammunition during the Russian offensive on Pokrovsk in Donbas.
On the other hand, the head of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, was to quietly support the actions of the Ukrainians and help them conduct a severe campaign of strikes against Russian refineries, which, according to analyzes, was to cost Russia $75 million.
The newspaper also describes the marginalization of Trump's envoy for Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg, which has been ongoing almost from the very beginning. Kellogg in a conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, Radosław Sikorski, before the February Munich Security Conference, in response to Sikorski's question: “do we still have an alliance?” he replied that he was Europe's best friend in administration. His critics in the Pentagon claimed that Kellogg was presenting himself at the time as “a holding back front against all these isolationists” in the administration.
The anti-Russian Kellogg – originally an envoy for Russia and Ukraine, and then only Ukraine – was also said to irritate President Trump, who told him during one of their meetings that “Russia is his.” And when Kellogg publicly praised the perseverance and courage of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump demanded an explanation from him and, in a conversation with another adviser, allegedly called him an “idiot.”
The Pentagon and the White House were also irritated by the attitude of the former commander of US forces in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, who advocated support for Ukraine and in his speeches to Congress presented Russia as a chronic threat to the US. Before retiring, Cavoli allegedly sent an internal memorandum to Hegseth in which he stated that Ukraine was slowly losing the war and that withholding support would make it lose it faster. However, according to one of the high-ranking military officers quoted by the NYT, this prospect did not worry the Vance camp.
The belief that Russia is “invincible” – this is the word Trump allegedly used while watching a military parade in Moscow – was also supposed to dictate the administration's approach to peace negotiations, based on intense pressure on Ukraine and a much softer approach towards Russia. During the first meeting with the Ukrainian delegation in Jeddah – which took place after Trump and Zelensky's public quarrel in the White House – then-US national security adviser Michael Waltz allegedly gave then-Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov a marker and told him to “start drawing” possible territorial concessions on a map. Umerov drew a line along the front line, excluding the occupied Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and the Kinburnsky Promontory. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was then said to have pressured Ukrainians to agree that the United States would recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea, which Kiev would ultimately agree to.
However, Kremlin representatives were to suggest from the beginning that they were not willing to make any concessions, which they were to announce during the first talks between the US and Russian delegations in Riyadh. Rubio began these conversations with a quote from “The Godfather,” emphasizing the need to keep the conversations going: “I've spent my life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless, but not men.” Despite this, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin's adviser Yuri Ushakov reportedly said that the war would not end until Russia took possession of all four oblasts (Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson) that it had formally annexed. Similar demands – plus American and European recognition of Russian territorial gains – were repeated by Putin himself in a conversation with an unnamed European representative.
The talks in Riyadh were also intended to prove the marginalization of the position of Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian wealth fund, who was the main interlocutor of Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and who signaled a greater willingness to compromise in exchange for economic benefits from cooperation with the US. Dmitriev was not allowed by Lavrov and Ushakov to take part in the first round of talks, and during the second session he added a chair himself.
Ultimately, however, Putin allegedly agreed to end the war in exchange for Ukraine's withdrawal from the entire Donbas area, which was to be the main topic of talks between him and Trump in Anchorage, Alaska. Although just before the meeting, CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Trump that Russia was not interested in ending the war, Trump reportedly responded positively to the topic, considering the issue of control of the lands in Donbas not occupied by Russia as a detail and a piece of land that no one in America had heard about.
– Real estate people look at it this way: “OK, we have agreed on all the other terms of the contract, but we are arguing about the finishing strips and door handles,” said Trump's adviser, summarizing the president's thinking.
After the meeting in Anchorage and Trump's turn against Russia after talks with Zelensky in New York at the UN headquarters in September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded that Rubio publicly admit that he made a commitment in Alaska to force Zelensky to hand over Donbas. However, the Americans later heard that it was an independent initiative of Lavrov, who was temporarily sidelined shortly thereafter.
The New York Times article also provides additional details about the ups and downs of Trump's relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the daily, Trump has long disliked the Ukrainian leader, repeatedly calling him vulgarly “motherfucker” in conversations with advisers. According to the daily, apart from the quarrel at the White House in February, there was almost no similar outburst during the October meeting, when Trump pressed Zelensky to return the Donbas to Russia, but Umerov was supposed to calm the situation.
Nevertheless, there were also lighter moments in the talks, such as when, during a meeting with Zelensky and European leaders in August, Trump suddenly stated that Ukrainian women are beautiful and cited the example of Oleksandra Nikolaenko, former Miss Ukraine and wife of a friend of Las Vegas tycoon Phil Ruffin. Trump then suggested that Zelensky and Nikolaenko have a conversation, which was to take place during the meeting. For the next 10-15 minutes, Zelensky and the Odessa woman allegedly spoke in Ukrainian while Trump and the leaders listened.
– You could feel the mood in the room changing – an official present told the daily. – The temperature dropped. Everyone laughed. It created a human connection. It was a mind-meld of sorts. This humanized Zelensky in Trump's eyes, he added.
From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)
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