Putin 'will agree to Ukraine deal because of heavy losses', US official says as Trump warns of 'devastating' punishment
by Kit Heren · LBCExclusive
Sebastian Gorka on the Ukraine ceasefire deal
By Kit Heren
A senior official in Donald Trump's administration has told LBC he's confident that Russia will agree to a peace deal in Ukraine.
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Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the US president, told LBC's Andrew Marr the extent of Russian losses during its three-year invasion of Ukraine made continuing the war politically difficult.
Ukraine agreed to the US' 30-day ceasefire offer on Tuesday, with White House officials now taking the deal to Moscow.
The Kremlin has so far said that it wants to speak to the US directly before making a decision on the ceasefire offer.
Mr Trump warned of "devastating" consequences to Russia if they didn't agree to the peace deal.
Meanwhile Russian president Vladimir Putin was pictured visiting the frontline of the Kursk region, which Ukraine has invaded, while dressed in camouflage.
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Mr Gorka said the echoes of the bloody Soviet conflict in Afghanistan - labelled by some as their equivalent of the Vietnam war - had convinced him that Russia would be amenable to peace.
It's unclear how many Russian soldiers have died in the war. A US estimate suggests that over 700,000 have been killed or wounded in the past three years, along with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.
Mr Gorka told Andrew: "I look at the losses made, I look at the political tensions inside the Russian Federation and it smacks very much - of the Afghan-Soviet war. That did not go well for the Soviet Union.
"The first thing that was the crack in the armour of the Iron Curtain. It wasn't anything happening in Poland or in the land of my parents' birth, in Hungary.
"It was when the mothers and the grandmothers saw the cardboard coffins of the 19-year-old privates being shipped back from Afghanistan and spoke out publicly against the Kremlin.
"So we're seeing echoes of that kind of tension because it's the young men who are being thrown into the meat grinder."
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Relations between Ukraine and the US appeared to be faltering after an explosive meeting between Mr Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy nearly two weeks ago.
But after Ukraine agreed to the ceasefire offer on Tuesday Mr Trump invited Mr Zelenskyy back to the White House. Mr Zelenskyy had also written a letter seeking to build diplomatic bridges after the meltdown.
Asked if relations had improved in the past two weeks, Mr Gorka said: "Without a doubt. We've seen the apology come from Kyiv. We've seen their desire to come back to the negotiating table. So without a doubt, I think that the wrong individuals were listened to on one side of the table 12 days ago.
"I think that has changed the dynamic and it's just a recognition of empirical fact. There is no leader in the world today, not a nation head, not a prime minister, not a president, not a Secretary general who can bring peace to Ukraine and to the European continent - except President Trump.
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"That is the only person who can bring the fighting to an end. And I think that has been realised by Kyiv, as it has also by Moscow."
Speaking earlier on Wednesday, Mr Trump said that his administration had heard "positive messages" from Russia about the ceasefire deal.
Mr Trump told reporters on Wednesday: "Hopefully we can get a ceasefire", adding that "it is up to Russia now".
He added: "We have people going to Russia right now".
Asked what the US could do to pressure Russia into signing the peace deal, he said: "There are things that wouldn't be pleasant in a financial sense. I can do things financially that would be very bad for Russia.
"I don't want to do that because I want to get peace."
He added: "In a financial sense, yes, we could do things that would be very bad for Russia, that would be devastating for Russia. But I don't want to do that."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Washington will put the proposals to Moscow directly, adding that "the ball is truly in their court" and rejection of the plan would "make their intentions clear".