Donald Trump is likely to approach negotiations with Russia on Ukraine "from a position of strength", while Vladimir Putin is in a "profoundly weak position", according to a former adviser to the US president.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump said he and Russian president Vladimir Putin have agreed to begin “negotiations” on ending the Ukraine war.
HR McMaster is a former US Army lieutenant general who served as Mr Trump's national security adviser from 2017 until 2018, when he stepped down.
Mr McMaster was a speaker at a Center for European Policy Analysis (Cepa) briefing on Friday, attended by BreakingNews.ie.
When asked how he felt Mr Trump would approach negotiations on Ukraine, Mr McMaster said: "I think recommendation one [in a Cepa report] which is to go into any kind of an effort to get on a path toward ending the violence in Ukraine from a position of strength. And I think the early indicators in the Trump administration are that president Trump is predisposed toward following that advice.
"I think he understands that Russia is in a position of weakness, and he is predisposed toward exacerbating that. If Putin doesn't stop his onslaught against Ukraine, which he's shown no signs of doing, I'm sure what president Trump is confronting at this moment are those who are sort of predisposed toward retrenchment and disengagement, and those who are urging him to support Ukraine and to initiate any kind of a negotiation from this position of strength.
"I'm sure what many people in the administration are highlighting to him is the degree to which the conflict in Ukraine is connected to this broader competition with an increasingly aggressive axis of aggressors. China, which is sustaining Russia's war-making machine and buying the energy that can feed Putin's ATM, as well as providing Russia with the hardware and equipment necessary to sustain his war-making machine. As well the the conflict with Iran and Iran's aggression across the Middle East."
He added: "Iran is providing Russia with the Shahed drones and missiles, and in return, getting technical support on their missile programme, but probably on their nuclear program as well. The interconnected nature of these competitions is quite obvious when you see North Korean soldiers fighting in the first major land war in Europe since World War Two. So I think the president is probably receiving all these briefings and seeing the interconnected nature, but I think what he's also seeing is that he has an opportunity.
"They [Russia, China and Iran] like to try to portray strength, but the rolling blackouts in Iran, the real economic dire circumstances that they're in, based on the corruption of that regime and the degree they continue to squander the tremendous resources in Iran and deny the the path to prosperity that the Iranian people deserve.
"The degree to which China is having some profound economic problems, and Russia, as we mentioned, some of them.
"Putin is sitting on piles of cash he can't convert. He's spending almost 50 per cent of his GDP equivalent on defence, which is unsustainable. They're on the verge of maybe hyperinflation.
"He can't generate manpower. I just think what president Trump is probably hearing is, you have an opportunity to win here, and part of that being to to get toward a path to peace in Ukraine."
He's in a profoundly weak position, we should not help him get up off the mat.
Mr McMaster reiterated his belieft that Putin is in a "profoundly weak position".
"He's in a profoundly weak position, we should not help him get up off the mat. I think what we should do is ensure that we put more economic pressure on him and recognise, again, how Ukraine fits into the broader shadow war that he's conducting against all of us, and impose costs on him for for doing so.
"This involves taking on the whole axis of aggressors. There are people who who always argue, or have been arguing for a return of the policy of the 70s of separating China and Russia. We have to recognise they are in a declared strategic partnership with no limits that Xi Jinping continues to talk about... changes that have not occurred for a century.
"What he's talking about is winning over the free world. I think the more that president Trump recognises that, the better position we will be in to achieve an outcome that's favourable to the Ukrainians and gets us on the path to restoring peace."
