Fox News Analyst Pours Cold Water On a Possible Trump Deal: Putin ‘Hasn’t Made a Single Concession’

Fox News senior strategic analyst, retired General Jack Keane, joined anchor Gillian Turner on Monday to discuss President Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky’s remarks in the Oval Office, just moments earlier, about a possible end to the war in Ukraine. Keane wrapped his analysis on a pessimistic note, explaining that Russia’s Vladimir Putin has yet to offer any actual concessions, and there is no indication he might anytime soon.

“You heard President Trump a moment ago talking about the possibility that he had floated of getting to a ceasefire, seeming to ditch that in favor of a comprehensive peace deal. Here’s the president himself a moment ago — call for number four,” began Turner, playing a clip from Trump:

I don’t think you need a ceasefire. You know, if you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn’t do any ceasefires. And I know that it might be good to have, but I can also understand strategically why, well, you know, one country or the other wouldn’t want it. You have a ceasefire and they rebuild and rebuild and rebuild. I like the concept of a ceasefire for one reason, because you’d stop killing people immediately, as opposed to in two weeks or one week or whatever it takes. But we can work a deal where we’re working on a peace deal while they’re fighting it.

“So, pros and cons, general, the president is saying there for a ceasefire insofar as it concerns Ukraine. How do you see it?” Turner asked.

“Well, I think what likely happened is [Steve] Witkoff came back from his meetings and, you know, Putin hadn’t changed one iota in terms of a ceasefire. And the president and his team had to think through that, all right, do we crush his economy now or is there still a chance, even with a ceasefire, that maybe we can cut some kind of a deal here?” Keane replied, adding:

Maybe it’s better to talk to him face-to-face and get a sense, you know, where he really is and how inflexible he is, uh… So I don’t know exactly what happened but I think that that may be what did happen and the president made a decision but coming out of the meeting with Putin it’s obvious that he is encouraged and, look, he spent an hour and a half on the phone from one a.m. to two thirty, after the summit meeting, talking to his European leaders and President Zelensky.

By the way, as much as this is a start and their physical presence all at once here, these conversations have been going on for weeks with many of the same people and the president of the United States and it’s been a continuous dialog and now getting to a very pivotal point here. I think what the crucible that he’s about to walk into and discuss with the Europeans and it really has to be done before Zelensky can make a realistic counteroffer to what Putin’s offer is, as John just explained it so accurately on the map. And that is the security guarantees.

How comprehensive are they? How much teeth are they going to have in them? And certainly President Zelensky is going to make an assessment of that in terms of does that satisfy him in establishing real deterrence with Putin? Because if it does, John and Gillian, what that gives Zelensky, then, is a lot of running room in terms of options.

It’s possible, then he could give up land and maybe get some others in return if he believes there is a real deterrence there and a real red line that will hold Putin accountable. I would imagine Zelensky will want something that goes beyond the Trump administration, like Senate ratification of an agreement being made by the Trump administration, so it has longevity to it. But yeah, this meeting coming up is the crucial meeting, and out of that meeting, what is Zelensky’s counteroffer, and do we go forward and meet with Putin? And it’s interesting to note… President Trump, not too surprising, is continuing a dialog with Putin because he’s continuing the dialog with the European leaders and Zelensky all through this as well.

“Well, you know, we’ll see what happens. The president didn’t seem particularly optimistic that, or at least not the president, but what we heard from behind the scenes from Jacqui Heinrich was they weren’t particularly optimistic that this meeting this afternoon might automatically lead to a trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelensky. But if you get the two of them in the same room at the same time, I mean, there is so much bad blood. You wonder how they could ever come to some sort of an agreement,” followed up anchor John Roberts.

“Well, it depends on, do they really want to have an agreement? Otherwise, it’s just a show point. But yeah, this meeting certainly is going to be a telltale sign if it’s worth going forward or not. And does Zelensky have a counteroffer that sort of makes some sense? Let’s all be hopeful about it. We’d like to see this thing go forward and get this process moving in the right direction. But we do have a person on the other side who up to now hasn’t made a single concession of any consequence. And that’s the reality that President Trump, Zelensky, and the Europeans are dealing with,” Keane concluded.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.