Trump has long touted on the campaign trail that he can stop the Ukraine war in 24 hours while taking shots a Biden's inability to oversee a negotiation that would ultimately end the war.
The Daily Telegraph is now reporting, citing an unnamed source who is said to be close to the former president and current GOP frontrunner going into the November election, that Trump has developed a detailed plan for achieving Ukraine peace.
"There is a plan, but he’s not going to debate it with cable news networks because then you lose all leverage," the source said.
Below is the section of the Friday Telegraph report which previews the plan:
A source close to the Trump campaign has told The Telegraph that a detailed Ukraine-Russia peace plan has been drawn up but will not yet be disclosed in any detail before his in an effort to maintain leverage.
Mr Trump will style himself as the only candidate who can end the war, with a simple “bumper-sticker” slogan, they said.
“He wants to stop the killing,” said the source. “That’s the bumper sticker: Trump will stop the killing.”
Last month a Washington Post report claimed that key to Trump's plan would be pressuring Kiev to permanently give up Crimea and part of the Donbas to the Russians.
The Post had cited aides who said the plan is to push for "Ukraine to cede Crimea and Donbas border region to Russia" in return for an end the Russian occupation and invasion.
But the truth is that at the very least Kiev would have to forever relinquish claims of sovereignty over Crimea. Moscow is also never going to let go to the four annexed territories in the east.
But Trump had slammed the apparently premature report as "fake news". At the time a statement from the Trump campaign said "The whole thing is fake news from the Washington Post. They’re just making it up." Spokesman Jason Miller did emphasize, however, that "President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing. Joe Biden is talking about more killing."
Meanwhile, things on the battlefield are making it increasingly clear that Ukraine may soon have no other option. The country's military and intelligence leadership also appears to be coming around to the hard reality that it will have to surrender territory, or else continue suffering massive losses and ceded ground. The Telegraph writes in its fresh report:
Ukraine is preparing for peace talks with Russia as there is “no way to win on the battlefield alone”, Kyiv’s deputy spy chief has said.
Maj Gen Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency, said both sides were currently vying for “the most favorable position” ahead of possible negotiations in 2025.
As with virtually all wars, negotiations will likely be the final stage of the conflict, he told the Economist.
Yet President Zelensky himself has yet to echo this perspective. Instead he's currently urging the West for more and more advanced weapons, and talking about "ten year defense" plans ensured by the US and Kiev's backers.
He has further recently said that if Ukraine ever hopes to formally join NATO, it must 'win' against Russia - which at this point seems in the realm of fantasy. The White House has so far done nothing to dispel this fantasy, but has instead encouraged it.
Russian state media had captured and translated key lines of Zelensky's address. "I believe that we will be in NATO only if we win. I don’t think that we will be admitted [...] during the war," Zelensky had said during a meeting with officers. Ukrainian sources also confirmed the remarks.