Former White House national security adviser John Bolton said Wednesday that President Trump had “effectively surrendered” to Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of expected peace negotiations, criticizing the administration for suggesting Ukraine be kept out of NATO.
“Well, I don‘t have any expectations anymore. I think we know exactly what‘s going to happen,” Bolton told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in an interview. “President Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin before the negotiations have even begun.”
“The positions that Defense Secretary [Pete] Hegseth announced in Brussels, which I‘m sure I‘d be stunned if Trump didn‘t convey them directly to Putin in their phone call, constitute terms of a settlement that could have been written in the Kremlin,” he added. “Maybe they were written in the Kremlin and got out in propaganda channels.“
Trump talked to both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, in conversations where he emphasized the need for an end to the nearly three-year-long war in Eastern Europe.
“No one wants peace more than Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote after his call with Trump. “Together with the U.S., we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done.”
Putin and Trump are expected to meet in Saudia Arabia at some point, but a timeline has not been released.
Hegseth said Wednesday that he does not believe Ukraine joining NATO is a “realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
Bolton, a frequent critic of the president, argued that the path Trump’s administration is charting to help secure a truce in the deadly war between Russia and Ukraine presents a “complete reversal” of the U.S. and NATO positions on a “number of issues.”
“For example, up until today, the official American position was that Ukraine should be returned to full sovereignty and territorial integrity. That is gone,” Bolton said on CNN’s “The Source.”
“The question of NATO membership as far back as 2008 had been that ultimately Ukraine would become a NATO member, that doesn’t look like it’s around either,” he added.
On Wednesday, Trump said it is unlikely for Ukraine to get back to its pre-2014 borders and that Zelensky will “have to do what he has to do.”
Bolton, who was ousted by the Trump administration in 2019, suggested Putin “scored” a number of victories this week — calling out the prisoner swap between American schoolteacher Marc Fogel and Russian crypto kingpin Alexander Vinnik for example — and Putin wants to negotiate with Trump, not Zelensky.
“He thinks he will get more out of it, and he is absolutely right,” the former U.N. ambassador said Wednesday.
Zelensky, in an interview with The Guardian earlier this week, noted that he planned to offer Russia control of the Kursk region in exchange for Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation. He did not specify which territory Kyiv would request be returned to Ukraine, nor did he address other negotiations.
