"It's dangerous": An exclusive interview with John Bolton on Moscow's cynical plan for the negotiations

Moscow is attempting to turn negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine into a large-scale bargaining process over the future of all of Europe. The Kremlin is promoting the idea of a new security architecture, effectively seeking to limit the influence of NATO and the United States. At the same time, Donald Trump’s administration seems to be increasingly succumbing to Russian manipulation, allowing Moscow to create the false impression that responsibility for the war lies with both sides.

In an exclusive interview with 24 Channel, John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser and U.S. ambassador to the UN, explained why the talks in Abu Dhabi could play into Putin’s hands, how the Russian dictator is trying to use Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, and why Trump is “easy prey” for the Kremlin.

How the Russians “used” the Europeans in the talks

Let’s begin our discussion with the results of the trilateral talks between Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi. European allies also tried to join the discussions. However, they were not part of the main session. What is your assessment of this stage of the negotiations and the results of these diplomatic efforts?

I don’t think much was achieved during this two-day session in Abu Dhabi. I believe the parties remained very far apart on the key elements that were supposed to be discussed.

Obviously, there was agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war, which everyone welcomes from a humanitarian perspective. But I think there are so many differences, and the positions remain irreconcilable.

What really concerns me is that the Russians seem to have been able to take advantage of European countries’ desire to actually participate in the negotiations in order to secure very vague wording regarding the discussion of the future security architecture in Europe.

From the very beginning, this has been Russia’s main argument – one that is completely false, but a key claim – that the only way to resolve this issue is to have more security guarantees in the future, and that it was Russia that felt threatened by Ukraine, NATO, and the existing European security architecture.

Full interview with John Bolton: watch the video

This is utter nonsense and certainly no justification for invading a neighboring country. But that was Russia’s position, and the Russians are trying to exploit Europe’s desire to be at the table alongside Russia’s desire to fundamentally change Europe’s political landscape.

It seems to me that American negotiators fell for the Russian position. They were in Moscow, trying to secure European participation in the meetings themselves.

My assumption is that the Russians will use this to make further attempts to derail the negotiations so that they focus on the deployment of forces across Europe, which has nothing to do with Ukraine.

And we’ll have to see how this plays out. Perhaps it will be much ado about nothing, but this Russian insistence that not only Ukraine but the entire security of Europe is at stake has been a problem for some time now, in my opinion.

Why the Donbas and the Real Causes of the War Aren’t Being Discussed in the Negotiations

Doesn’t it seem to you that right now we’re negotiating about everything except the most important part – the territory and the issue of Donbas? Putin, it seems, is still unwilling to agree to a ceasefire along the current front line. So what are these negotiations about, if they’re about everything except the most important issue?

Sometimes people say it’s a matter of sequence. Do you first address the specifics of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and then move on to post-conflict investments and post-conflict security structures? Or do you discuss all of this at the same time, or – in the Russians’ view – do you start by discussing security structures?

My experience shows that when diplomats start talking about sequence and say, “Well, it’s really just a matter of the order in which we address these issues, and we’ll do this, and then we’ll do that. So if we get the sequence right, we’ll get a good result.” I’d say that when you hear the word “sequence,” keep your hand on your wallet, because trouble is on the way.

To me, there’s no point in any lengthy discussions about large-scale investments in Ukraine or Russia after the war, or about the future overall security architecture for Europe, until the root causes of the war – namely, Russian aggression – are eliminated.

And any attempt to sidestep this fundamental issue simply plays into Russia’s hands.

According to Axios, Russian negotiators claimed that Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine because President Biden did not respond to his 2021 letter, which outlined Russia’s security concerns. As we know, a summit between Biden and Putin took place in Switzerland just before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Do you agree with Russia’s assessment?

No, this is yet another attempt to rewrite history, but it aligns with their broader strategic goal: to avoid dealing with Ukraine, to avoid dealing with the Donbas, or the two invasions they’ve carried out over the past 15 years, and instead focus on what really concerns them – namely, reducing the influence of the U.S. and NATO, especially in Eastern and Central Europe.

So we can either get bogged down in these Russian fantasies or face the truth: the sides are so far apart that these negotiations are going nowhere.

This is a fundamental flaw in Trump’s negotiators and Trump’s negotiating style – talking about all the wonderful things that will happen once a peace agreement is reached, without fully understanding or realizing how to actually reach that peace agreement.

We’re seeing the same thing with Iran right now. We see the same thing in the case of the Gaza Strip and the conflict between terrorists and Israel. It’s simply a fundamental flaw in the entire conceptual approach to negotiations. I don’t see this changing over the next two years.

So for me, this is just another reason not to fall for this Russian strategy, which is aimed at sowing division in the West and diverting people’s attention from what the real crisis in Eastern Europe is today.

And that is their ongoing aggression against Ukraine and their threats and activities in the gray zone – hybrid wars, as some call them – against all parts of Europe.

Bomb threats, along with Iranian threats targeting food supply chains in refrigerated warehouses across Europe. Yesterday we saw bomb threats in Italy, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

I’m not claiming that all of them are linked to Russia or even to Iran. But the fact remains: the Russians are testing Europe in various ways – very threatening ways – while constantly talking about how unsafe they feel.

How Moscow Is Playing Games with the White House

According to The Economist, the U.S. is considering a proposal to change Ukraine’s borders – to redraw Ukraine’s administrative boundaries – as part of a potential peace agreement with Russia. Simply shifting the line in the Donbas, in the Donetsk region, to allow Putin to declare a sort of victory for his domestic audience. Could this work with the Russians, given that even the Russian side, it seems, is still unwilling to accept this proposal from the American side?

I think, technically, from the Russian perspective, they have already annexed the Donbas into Russia. Therefore, anything less than that would be an admission that they do not have control.

I think the Kremlin is playing games with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. They aren’t trying to offend them. They aren’t going to say “no” to everything that doesn’t align 100% with their position, but they’re trying to show that Putin is a reasonable negotiator, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not.

Of course, this isn’t true, but the Russians are very successfully working with the Trump administration, making them believe that there is moral parity between the two sides. And therein lies the real danger.

And this directly spills over into the issue of the so-called future security architecture for Europe, as if the real problem were not Russia and its aggressive behavior.

What are the main reasons for Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff’s sympathy toward Putin and their positive attitude toward the Russian dictator?

I think they reflect Trump. I believe that their two main qualifications for being chief negotiators, unlike, say, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who should be leading these negotiations...

But Kushner and Witkoff are Trump’s absolute puppets. They’ll do whatever he tells them to do. And Trump knows that.

That’s exactly why they’re the lead negotiators on Russia, on Iran, on Gaza, on all these major crisis zones. Because they’re accountable only to Trump.

What insidious proposal is Putin preparing for NATO?

What are the chances that the U.S. and Russia will try to redraw borders in Europe as part of this new security architecture? After all, Putin could also ask President Trump to push NATO back to its 1997 borders and withdraw NATO forces from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland as part of this agreement. What are the risks of this, and what role could Congress play in countering this idea?

Congress would play a very minor role. It could exert political influence, but under the Constitution, these matters truly fall within the president’s purview.

I think Putin is referring, in a vague way, a modern version of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which was an agreement from the end of the Cold War, concluded in the early 1990s, to try to balance conventional armed forces across Europe.

Of course, with the end of the Cold War, the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe became completely obsolete. But in Putin’s strategic thinking, he would like to create a kind of buffer zone between wherever the western border of Russia or the Russian Empire might lie and actual military threats.

And he hopes that either the Trump administration or weak leadership in Europe might be willing to agree to this. Of course, there are many countries in Eastern Europe – in particular the Baltic states, Finland, and, I think, Poland – that will not agree to this.

But Putin is engaged in numerous propaganda efforts, particularly in the Balkans and other European countries, to try to weaken their resolve within NATO. So he’s playing a multifaceted game, and neither the U.S. nor Europe is actually involved in it.

There was also an idea to resume the work of the NATO-Russia Council as part of this grand agreement between Europe and Russia. What do you think of this idea, and could it further divide NATO allies?

I think that is precisely Russia’s intention in exploring this issue. When NATO established the so-called Permanent Joint Council between NATO and Russia in the 1990s, the Russians found it highly unsatisfactory.

I remember attending a meeting of a U.S. delegation led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Sergei Ivanov, who was Russia’s defense minister at the time. And he said that this Permanent Joint Council was rubbish, that it did none of what the Russians had expected.

So if the Russians point to this as a wonderful example of the security architecture they would like to see, it is done solely for political purposes – I believe – with the aim of trying to divide the Alliance, to force the Americans to advocate for it, while Europeans will have to remind Washington that this mechanism collapsed more than 25 years ago.

Are they trying to integrate Russia into the West? And what do you think of that idea?

I don’t think they’re trying to integrate into the West. I believe that for over 20 years, Putin has been saying that he essentially wants to recreate the Russian Empire.

And once he restores the Russian Empire – if that ever happens – then, I think, he’ll seriously consider the potential for cooperation with the West.

Why Trump Is “Easy Prey” for the Russian Dictator

Don’t you think Putin might miss his best window of opportunity to strike a deal with the U.S. before the 2028 presidential election? Because it’s hard to find anyone else in the world, other than President Trump, who would be willing to make such major concessions to Putin and give him everything he wants.

I think Putin faces a difficult choice. I truly believe there’s a time limit he obviously has to consider. Xi Jinping and China also have to consider this.

They’ll meet in China next week. We’ll see what kind of talks they have. But I think Putin doesn’t view two years as something inevitable.

In his mind, he still has room to maneuver, and he still thinks he can keep putting pressure on Trump.

The real question is how resolute Europe will be. Given the elections in a number of European countries, coalition governments, and problems in other countries, such as Germany, Putin may think that Europe’s resolve is on the verge of collapsing, and that he doesn’t need to put too much pressure on Trump just yet.

Of course, this has a shelf life. It won’t last more than two years, but Putin will try to maximize what he can get during that period. That, I think, is clear.

I think he sees Trump as easy prey – someone who wants to talk about foreign investment, someone who might strike some oil and gas deals even before a ceasefire, even before an agreement with Ukraine.

This is exactly what happened before the election with the U.S. deal to purchase Russian diesel fuel, which, by the way, seems to be falling apart.

But this is the constant focus of Trump and his negotiators on the deals that will emerge once an agreement is reached. And that’s great. Everyone wants economic growth after an agreement is reached.

The small problem they don’t seem to understand is how to actually reach that agreement, because I don’t see any progress on that front.

What does a Democratic Congress mean for Ukraine? Both in terms of aid to Ukraine – possibly an additional $15 billion in aid – and perhaps something else related to the negotiations. Might Congress be able to change President Trump’s policy toward Ukraine?

There may be a greater likelihood of increased U.S. aid, although many of the Republicans who lost their seats were very strong advocates for Ukraine and very strong supporters of additional aid.

Many of the new Democrats, frankly speaking, have zero experience in foreign policy. I hope they will take a pro-Ukraine stance, and I would say that’s a likely outcome, but it’s not certain yet.