Russia is unlikely to accept Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's suggestion of withdrawing troops from the country's eastern industrial heartland if Moscow also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces, retired Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Newsmax on Thursday.
"I hate to be a downer on Christmas, but no, I don't think the Russians are going to [accept it]," Shaffer told Newsmax's "Wake Up America," calling the proposal similar to "Minsk III," which he said Russia has repeatedly rejected.
Russia would likely signal polite interest before rejecting the idea. "They'll be a little bit polite, but they're going to come back probably by late this weekend or early next week and say no," Shaffer said.
Zelenskyy's reported willingness to consider a pullback in the Donbas region is the latest in a series of ideas aimed at breaking a stalemate in Russia's war against Ukraine, now stretching beyond 1,400 days.
The Donbas, long a central sticking point, includes heavily industrialized territory that has seen some of the most intense fighting of the conflict.
Shaffer said Moscow has little reason to compromise while its forces continue to advance.
"They're still making progress along all fronts," he said.
A demilitarized zone could lead to a long-term frozen conflict rather than a true settlement, comparing the concept to the Korean Peninsula, Shaffer added.
Russia's economy could sustain the war under current conditions for about another six months, he further noted, while noting reports that suggest Russia anticipates the war extending into next year.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt, meanwhile, said that Shaffer's "Minsk III" comparison underscores a core challenge: Russia's deep skepticism of ceasefire-style arrangements after the earlier Minsk accords.
Holt said former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President François Hollande later acknowledged the accords bought time for Ukraine's military to strengthen, a record that could make it difficult to persuade Russia that new demilitarized zones would be credible.
"With those things on the record, it's going to be very hard to convince the Russians that demilitarized zones and frozen conflicts are really the way ahead," Holt said.
He said prior international monitoring was inadequate and warned that freezing the lines could simply delay further conflict. "If you do just freeze the conflict, all you're going to do is [open up] more violence later on," he said.
Holt said any durable settlement would require internationally recognized borders and economic incentives that make it in both countries' interest to stop fighting.
"We have to get to some sort of place that the U.N. and the international community recognizes as borders to sovereign countries," Holt said, adding that economic work would be needed "to make it in both their interests to put the guns down."
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