Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev reacted to potential peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, saying that Putin would reject them.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Malofeyev, also known as “the Orthodox Oligarch”, claimed that Putin is not looking forward to the peace plan that Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg is likely to propose once Trump is in office.
According to the plan, US military aid to Ukraine would be used as a bargaining chip. The war would be essentially frozen and Ukraine’s NATO accession delayed.
“Kellogg comes to Moscow with his plan, we take it and then tell him to screw himself, because we don’t like any of it. That’d be the whole negotiation,” Malofeyev told the FT.
Instead, he proposed a number of scenarios that “would encompass the future of Europe and the world, not just the future of Ukraine.”
He added that Trump “only has a chance of ending the war” if he does what Russia wants. That includes cancelling the permission for Ukraine to use American-made long-range weapons, removing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and agreeing to meet with Putin to “discuss all the issues of the global order at the highest level.”
He also claimed that Russia isn’t bluffing about using a tactical nuclear weapon if the US continues to aid Ukraine, adding that “there will be a radiation zone nobody will ever go into in our lifetime. And the war will be over.”
While Kellogg or Trump have yet to respond to this, right before being appointed as a special envoy he commented on the Russian nuclear threats in an interview with Fox News, reminding Russia that the Western powers have a much more robust arsenal.
