Opinion: Retired Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis Asks What Putin Must Give Up in a Trump Ukraine Deal
The Fox contributor backs Trump's goal of ending the war but argues a deal that squeezes only Kyiv is not a peace plan. He lists what Moscow should concede and what Washington should insist on, from interceptor production to snap-back sanctions.
This is a summary of an opinion column. The views belong to retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, not to RightNewsRightNow.
Maginnis starts from support for the president: Trump wants the war to end, "and that goal deserves support." His warning is that "a deal that squeezes only Ukraine is not a peace plan," and that right now Kyiv takes the pressure while Moscow collects the relief.
The missiles. He cites a Washington Post report that the White House is holding up Patriot interceptor transfers while Russian missiles keep falling, with one Ukrainian official saying only "a couple" remain. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Oct. 20 that "there's nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine," though a batch bought for Kyiv may not have been delivered. Maginnis grants the administration's strongest defense, scarcity: he cites a CSIS estimate that heavy use in the Iran war pushed U.S. Patriot inventories below 1,000. A president must keep enough to protect American troops, he writes. The lasting answer, he argues, is production, including the joint interceptor production Zelenskyy offered Sens. Wicker and Cramer, with technology safeguards.
The leverage. He lists several pressure points on Kyiv: a reported threat to stop the allied-funded weapons pipeline unless Ukraine halted deep strikes on Russian energy sites; a disputed satellite-terminal restriction Trump denied ("It wasn't us"); three days without American missile warnings; and Trump's Oct. 10 call to replace Ukraine's president. On the other side, he says Trump's Oct. 11 energy ceasefire was never confirmed by Putin, followed by strikes on 28 substations that left about 550,000 Ukrainian households without power, per the Institute for the Study of War. He also notes an Oct. 9 Treasury license for certain Russian diesel transactions, which he says covers about 2% of U.S. demand by one analysis.
What Putin must give up. Maginnis says Russia should halt strikes on Ukraine's grid and cities, accept monitored ceasefire terms with consequences for violations, negotiate with Kyiv rather than over its head with China, and accept that the size of Ukraine's army and its security partners are Kyiv's call. For Trump, he says: preserve U.S. reserves, expand production, insist Europe performs, refuse any summit that decides Ukraine's fate without Ukraine, and tie further sanctions relief to compliance with automatic snap-back penalties.
His closing line: whether Putin will accept enforceable limits "remains unproved."
Note for readers: the claims, figures and sourcing are the author's. We did not verify them independently. Maginnis is a retired infantry officer and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council.