General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs, claimed on Wednesday that while US and coalition backing has not decreased, Kyiv is now in a stronger position to start negotiations as a result of its success in repelling Russia’s invasion.
And only last week, Milley compared the current conflict to World War I, in which the two sides quickly reached a standstill but continued to battle for three more years, claiming millions of lives in the process.
On Wednesday, he stated that the Russians were strengthening their control over around 20% of the Ukrainian region and that the front lines from Kharkiv to Kherson were beginning to stabilise.
“The probability of a Ukrainian military victory, defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine, to include … Crimea, the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily,” he remarked.
“There may be a political solution where, politically, the Russians withdraw, that’s possible,” Milley continued.
“You want to negotiate from a position of strength. Russia right now is on its back,” he asserted.
John Kirby, the spokesperson for national security at the White House, emphasised on Thursday that Washington is not attempting to pressure Kyiv into holding negotiations or ceding land.
According to Kirby, only Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, “gets to determine if and when he’s ready for negotiations and what those negotiations look like.”
“Nobody from the United States is pushing, prodding or nudging him to the table.”
Zelensky, according to the Kyiv Post, changed his position earlier this month in response to pressure from the White House, dropping his need that Russian President Vladimir Putin be removed from office before he agreed to discussions.
The highest-level face-to-face encounter between US and Russian officials since the war started in February was placed on Monday in Ankara when CIA Director William Burns had spoken to Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Russian SVR intelligence service.
The specifics of their encounter are still unknown, but Burns promptly took a flight to Kyiv to speak with Zelensky.
The White House emphasized, Burns “is not conducting negotiations of any kind … We firmly stick to our fundamental principle: nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
The US continues to back Ukraine strongly. The White House requested an additional $38 billion from Congress this week to aid Kiev.
However, it has also not refuted Milley’s position. In New York last week, Milley said that Ukraine had suffered close to 100,000 fighting casualties — about equal to Russia’s reported losses — and 40,000 civilian deaths.
He warned that if Kiev persisted in trying to battle all the way to its pre-2014 boundaries, the number might increase.
Over the first six months of World War I, from August to December 1914, one million people died, permanently establishing the front lines.
The fact that neither side would compromise, he claimed, “result in 20 million murdered by 1918.” Therefore, he advised, “So when there’s an opportunity to negotiate when peace can be achieved, seize it.”
Milley’s remarks sparked worries that Washington intended to curtail Kyiv’s ambition to retake all of the territories that the Russians currently inhabit, particularly Crimea and the Donbas, which it lost all authority over in 2014.
“Any voiced ideas of our land’s concessions or our sovereignty cannot be called peace. Immoral compromises will lead to new blood,” Zelensky said on Friday at the Halifax International Security Forum.
Professor Charles Kupchan of Georgetown University asserted that Milley is merely “a bit more forward-leaning” and that the Biden administration is most likely just attempting to ensure that the door is open for negotiations.
“I don’t think it’s premature. I think it’s prudent. The Russians and the Ukrainians need to have a perspective that there is a diplomatic route,” he added.
Additionally, it is a warning to Zelensky, whose obstinacy is trying some of his allies’ patience.
“Zelensky, understandably, gets a little heated, and says things that allies might not relish,” remarked Kupchan.
According to Kupchan, the White House is attempting to avoid being pressured by European partners to cease the war before Kyiv is prepared.
“The Biden administration wants to move slowly, in order to make sure that the transatlantic consensus remains rock-solid.”
Milley does not, according to American Enterprise Institute defense strategy expert Frederick Kagan, represent all of Washington.
In order to help Ukraine decisively defeat the Russian soldiers, he argued, the US should expand weaponry shipments as opposed to applying pressure to Zelensky.
“I am not persuaded that the Ukrainians can’t retake all or most of their territory,” he claimed.
“We should help accelerate the Ukrainian victory in this war,” he stated.
”Slowing down now is not the right thing to do.”
