The one thing that is not being discussed in the ongoing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine is an agreement as to how much Russia will pay, if anything, for the devastation from its invasion of Ukraine, Rep. Brian Mast said Tuesday on Newsmax.
"How much is Russia going to pay for every life lost, every mother that was killed, every child that was killed?" the Florida Republican said on Newsmax's "American Agenda." "What about the replacement of all of the infrastructure that they destroyed? The buildings? The roads? Anything else? Those are things that are not even being talked about right now."
But Russia won't be willing to give up money in any form, and further, it wants to divide Ukraine to be like the former East and West Germany nations or like the modern-day North and South Korea, said Mast.
Meanwhile, the congressman said he questions President Joe Biden's strength and said he's trying to "not have to take an opinion or a direction in any kind of way."
"That's where you see him going out there and having a gaffe, saying that Putin shouldn't remain in power. But just before that, he was saying that Putin is a war criminal, and then in the days after that, you have everybody from the administration going out there and saying No, listen, our boss didn't mean what he said," said Mast. "I think really, he's just trying not to take any kind of meaningful position, and that is what the definition of weakness really is."
Meanwhile, the West should be starting its negotiations from a position of strength, and that includes "no Putin in power, Russian nuclear demilitarization because they're elevated nuclear posture, demilitarized zones along all Russian borders, and the return of Crimea to Ukraine," said Mast. "Those should be the minimums that Europe, EU, and the West are looking at to say to Vladimir Putin. That's my opinion."
However, he said he knows Putin would not agree to those conditions, but "if we have learned anything from Donald Trump, it needs to be to start negotiating from a position of strength, not let's start the talks with someplace that maybe we'll get to down the road because then you're not even going to get to that point.
"You're going to end up even further down the road. You need to start the negotiations from the strongest possible position."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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