“Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow is more aimed at stopping the war in Ukraine, and Trump’s future strategy towards Russia depends on these negotiations,” political scientist Armen Vardanyan said in an interview with Radar Armenia, referring to the visit of US special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow today.
According to the political scientist, if Russia, taking into account American demands, agrees to a ceasefire, Trump will not impose further sanctions. “And if it does not show flexibility and does not make any concessions without giving up Ukraine, this will most likely be followed by severe sanctions,” he said, adding that sanctions will be applied not only to Russia, but also, indirectly, to those countries that rely on Russia for energy.
In particular, we are talking about India and China, which are the largest buyers of Russian oil. “These two countries buy Russian oil at cheap market prices and thus provide Russia with billions of dollars. If they close that landslide, those two countries will stop buying Russian oil. After that, Russia’s financial flows will drop significantly, and it will no longer be able to continue the war.”
According to him, it is unlikely that the parties will agree on a partial cessation of strategic operations. “First, the international press writes about it. For example, Reuters claims that Putin is not inclined to accept Trump’s ultimatum. Putin is known for being a pronounced gambler and wants to go all the way.”
He emphasized that in these 3.5 years, they have not achieved any serious achievements, they have not captured major cities, they have suffered millions of victims and losses of hundreds of billions, and now Putin will most likely continue the war to give the people some explanations as to why these victims and expenses were incurred.
According to A. Vardanyan, Trump expects Putin to stop the war and establish a ceasefire in Ukraine. “In his campaign speech, Trump said that we will stop the war in a few days. He has been in power for several months but has been unable to stop the war. Now, he claims he did not anticipate the solution to the issue would be so challenging. This is a question of Trump’s reputation, as well as the US strategic market.”
According to him, the US is spending vast amounts of money providing various military packages to Ukraine in the war, and now they are trying in every way to stop the war, which is why he must take drastic steps.
It should be noted that US President Donald Trump’s special representative Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow to negotiate with Putin.
