Nothing should be taken off the table when it comes to negotiating a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war, says Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys, noting that reporting about US President Donald Trump’s peace plan is “70-percent” baseless.
“About 70 percent of the information in the public domain regarding supposed fragments or intentions of the plan from either side, I can confirm, is baseless. There’s testing, [...] trying to check one idea or another, and so on,” he told an LRT TV programme on Monday evening.
The Lithuanian foreign minister, along with his Baltic counterparts, visited the United States last week.
During the visit, Budrys says, the Balts advised their American partners to “keep everything on the table” during negotiations.
“We’re talking about [Ukraine’s] NATO membership, we’re putting NATO membership on the table, which is something we’ve always said should be done. Not just because it’s the easiest, most direct way to ensure Ukraine’s security, but simply because by discarding the very idea you weaken any negotiation positions,” Lithuania’s top diplomat said.
“I got the impression that the US administration won’t be the one to come out with a plan and say, ‘here, read the plan, and now we’re going into negotiations with this plan’. That’s not how negotiations work; you have to keep some cards up your sleeve; the negotiation positions need to be formulated strongly,” he added.
Budrys said that an important factor is that Russia has shown no willingness to negotiate so far.
“There are some signals that the sanctions package could be significantly expanded and that military support for Ukraine could be unprecedented if no deal is reached, [and these signals] are real. We’ll see what leverage they choose,” the minister said.
“The desire to stop the fighting and ensure peace is certainly real, because I see how many efforts and how many people are involved in this in Washington,” he added.
In late January, Trump tasked his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, with ending the war within 100 days.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Kellogg has a plan, but Trump will control negotiations.
There have been media reports that the proposed peace plan includes freezing the front line in Ukraine, delaying Ukraine’s NATO membership indefinitely, and partially lifting sanctions on Russia.
Budrys met with Kellogg during his visit to Washington, DC.
“I can assure you that for General Kellogg and his team, our insights into what would work and what wouldn’t in deterring the aggressor – Russia – are very important,” the foreign minister said.
“We’re not just talking about ending the war, where everything stops and we freeze the situation. We're talking about ensuring that aggression doesn’t happen again,” he added.
During his election campaign, Trump promised to quickly end the war in Ukraine, but did not say how he planned to do so.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has put forward several proposals on how to end the conflict, including his so-called victory plan.
Last week, he reiterated that Ukraine’s NATO membership plan remains Kyiv’s preferred way to end the fighting and secure security guarantees.
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