As global leaders push for potential peace talks to take place between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin -- the first in more than three years of Moscow's full-scale war against Ukraine -- there is considerable skepticism that Putin would make any reasonable promises, let alone stick to them in the medium or long term.
Clifford May, the founder of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., voiced such a warning in a recent interview with Current Time. He maintains that what Putin wants is victory, not peace, and his ultimate goal is to restore the Russian Empire by subsuming Ukraine. Putin's only interest in diplomacy, May says, is to achieve what his protracted and bloody war cannot: full control of the Donbas.
Current Time: How exactly do you envision a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy unfolding?
Clifford May: Uncomfortably. This is not going to be easy for Zelenskyy. It won't be so hard for Putin, as he's used to bullying people. He bullies pretty much everybody in his life -- or flatters them, as he did with Trump. But he'll attempt to bully Zelenskyy.
His mission, it seems to me, is very clear: It's to restore the Russian/Soviet empire. And that requires that he drag Ukraine back into it. He also doesn't like the idea of a free, independent, and democratic nation right across the border from him. A bad example for Russians, as he sees it.
The negotiations between [Putin and Zelenskyy] are going to be very tense and very difficult because Putin will essentially be saying, "You need to surrender to me. Anything else will not be acceptable."
Current Time: Two of the main issues under discussion are security guarantees and territory. As for territory, Zelenskyy has said he will only discuss this in person with Putin. What are the implications of a sovereign state negotiating territorial concessions to achieve peace?
May: It's happened before: Think of the Soviet war against Finland in 1939, the Winter War. In that case, Stalin thought -- as Putin thought -- I can take over this little country in a few days. The Finns fought so bravely and so hard to protect their sovereignty and independence. Finland did not become a constituent republic of the Soviet Union like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It didn't become a vassal state.
[However,] it lost some freedom in independence. It lost roughly 10 percent of its territory in the end: Karelia. But Finland today is a free and independent country and now a member of NATO.
Here's what worries me most: Too few people understand that what Putin wants through diplomacy is not peace but victory. He wants to get through diplomacy what he hasn't been able to achieve through war over the past three or so years. He has much of the Donbas but not all of it. He wants the rest of it. In particular, he wants what's known as "the fortress belt," [which is made up of the] fortress cities he hasn't been able to break through.
There's a British military assessment that says for [Russia] to break through that would probably require another four years of fighting and roughly 2 million more casualties. Putin no doubt thinks, "If I can get there through diplomacy, isn't that a big victory for me?"
What security guarantee [can] there be in place of the fortress belt? French soldiers, British soldiers? Will they stay long enough? Will they be good enough? These are very important questions that I hope will at least be brought to Trump's attention by his advisers and that he will think about very hard over the coming days and weeks.
Current Time: What do you think such security guarantees should look like? Many politicians say they should resemble NATO's Article 5. Is implementing such a mechanism outside of NATO realistic?
May: It's a possibility. Article 5 under the NATO treaty says you attack one NATO member, you've attacked all NATO members, and, theoretically, all NATO members will respond.
I'm not absolutely sure [that would happen], and this worries me. It worries me because imagine Putin considers that he succeeds in Ukraine and decides he now wants [something like] a land bridge through Lithuania to his military bases in Kaliningrad. How many days will it take for [Russia to occupy] this southernmost road in Lithuania and say, "This is now Russian territory"?
Theoretically, Article 5 is now triggered. Do we all go to war against Russia for a road in Lithuania? Does the US? I can see plenty of people in the US who would say, "That's not really not worth American blood and treasure." So it's hard.
We have to think about what security guarantees are going to mean at the end of this. It's helpful if it means European troops and not just peacekeepers; they're meant to hold that border line. And if France and Britain say, "If you attack one of our soldiers, we'll consider an attack by Russia on us," that's useful, too.
But a security guarantee can also be something like the Budapest memo of 1994. Russia signed it, America signed it, Britain signed it. It said: "We will all respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine." That security guarantee was not literally worth the paper it was written on.
Security guarantees are a good thing, and I'm glad Trump is talking about it. It doesn't mean American boots on the ground [but could] mean American drones in the air, American satellites, and intelligence cooperation. It could even mean a no-fly zone in that area. But we don't know. The devil is very much in the details.
Current Time: Assuming Ukraine receives effective and reliable security guarantees, why would Putin accept them?
May: He might accept them with the thinking: "You know what, I'm going to get the land I want without fighting for four years. Without losing, without 2 million casualties."
He knows his army is tired. His army is not particularly good at this point. He wants to rebuild that. His economy is in terrible shape. He might say, "This is good. Yeah, there are going to be some security guarantees, but I don't think they'll hold up. And I'll do everything I can in the negotiations to make sure these security guarantees are not so good."
Current Time: You talk of Putin seeing Russia only as an empire. Recent polls in Ukraine indicate most citizens believe Putin would not stop even after a cessation of hostilities. In your opinion, would Putin return to seize all of Ukraine after a possible freeze in the war?
May: His goal is to take all of Ukraine. He doesn't believe Ukraine has any right to be a sovereign, independent country. He will take all of it if he absolutely can. And he will take more.
Putin has put up monuments to Stalin in the Moscow [subway] and around the country. Why? [Not] because he's a communist, but he's not an anti-communist, either. He has an unlimited partnership with Xi Jinping, leader of the most powerful Communist Party ever in history. He has very good relations with Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
[Putin] knows that when Stalin was dictator of the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire was at its largest in history. It's what Putin's mission is, to restore [that].
It's not so much the territory that he wants, because Russia already is a huge country. But he could use 40 million more Russians, couldn't he? The population, the demography [of Russia] is dreadful. So [Putin] would love to expand his population. And one way to do that is to force Ukrainians to consider themselves Russian. That's why he's been stealing Ukrainian children and trying to brainwash them into thinking of themselves as Russian.
Current Time: Do you think a possible meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy could lead to any concrete agreements?
May: My best guess is that it doesn't lead to much. Maybe a few agreements will be worked out if they can be at the trilateral when Putin, Zelenskyy, and Trump get together and Trump will take on the role of referee and say, "Volodymyr, give up the Donbas." And then maybe he says to Putin, "Vladimir, you can have everything you've conquered, but not much more."
