George Barros

All the available evidence indicates that the Russians are not interested in negotiating anything other than the capitulation of Ukraine.

Putin gave a phenomenal speech on December 19th where he enumerated that their demands are unchanged.

They want this additional territory that they've claimed to have annexed.

They're not willing to support any of the key provisions of the 28-point peace plan.

It's a very Russian-preferable agreement, but

There are certain provisions in there that the Russians don't like.

For example, they reject the notion of Ukraine receiving security guarantees, which is kind of the whole point that you need the linchpin to actually terminate the conflict.

Why would Ukraine stop fighting a defensive war?

to only allow the Russians to rearm, and then of course the Europeans won't do anything serious about it.

The 28-point peace plan talks about having American operation of Europe's largest nuclear power plant, this Aparisian nuclear power plant, which is currently occupied by Russia.

The Russians have decisively

rejected that.

And so what we're really seeing here is a strategy where the White House has been comfortable using coercion to put pressure on the Ukrainians to bring them to the table.

And the Ukrainians have accepted several concessions.

The Russians, however, have not indicated their willingness to make any kind of concessions or even accept a deal that's highly preferential to them.

They really want to have their cake and eat it too.

And I really think that until we change this calculus,

using some coercion to bring the Russians to the table as we have the Ukrainians.

I don't think that we're actually close to peace at all, honestly.

So, look, I think we need to look to the Russian negotiators that are actually the interlocutors with Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner.