Bob Maginnis, a military expert and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, tells AFN any end to the conflict will likely include a demilitarized zone between Russia and Ukraine. Rather than soldiers from both countries staring at each other through a fence, he predicts a neutral territory much like the end of the Korean War in 1953.
“The Chinese withdrew from South Korea. They bolstered the North and they established a demilitarized zone,” he says.
That territory, which separates North Korea and South Korea, is approximately three miles wide and runs approximately 160 miles east to west. The DMZ includes a military demarcation zone, too, also known as the "armistice line" that separates the two countries.
“There has to be some sort of neutral territory,” Maginnis advises, “separating Russia from Ukraine."
Also, like the end of the Korean War, Maginnis predicts a “forced armistice” that ends the bloodshed. That armistice, signed by the U.S., North Korea, and China, is also well known for the Korean peninsula being in a "state of war" despite bringing peace.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conceded in a recent interview his country does not have enough military forces to take back the Russian-occupied Crimea, so Ukraine must seek “diplomatic means" to end the Russian invasion and regain its land, he said.
AFN reported last week Zelenskyy and President Trump have gotten in a war of words at the same time U.S. diplomats are working with Russia’s diplomats to begin high-level talks.
Witnessing the ongoing talks, Maginnis says Russia opposes European soldiers serving as peacekeepers in the region. Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said no U.S. troops will serve in that capacity, either, likely over concerns about triggering a war under NATO’s Article 5.
“Clearly, the talk of bringing in peacekeepers that's problematic,” Maginnis says, “especially when Zelenskyy claims that you need 200,000 peacekeepers, which most of Western Europe is not going to provide.”
With the exception of NATO countries such as Poland that directly face Russia, troop strength across much of Western Europe is disastrously low. Great Britain’s stated plan to deploy 20,000 troops was criticized by The Independent newspaper, which said the former world empire has few main battle tanks, artillery, and shells for both.
