Washington, D.C. — As debate intensifies over the latest proposal to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery offers a stark assessment of where negotiations truly stand. Speaking with Independence Avenue Media on November 26 in Washington, D.C., Montgomery argues that the so-called “peace plan” echoes the Kremlin’s demands far more than any realistic diplomatic framework. He warns that the current moment is being shaped as much by political maneuvering as by conditions on the battlefield.
Montgomery explains how Moscow has repeatedly used the appearance of negotiation to delay sanctions, manipulate the U.S. political cycle, and avoid making meaningful concessions. He describes the most recent proposal as a “Putin plan” — a list of maximalist demands designed to pressure Kyiv and divide the United States, Europe, and Ukraine rather than advance real peace. According to Montgomery, this pattern fits a years-long Russian strategy of stalling until conditions favor further aggression.
Montgomery also examines the choices now facing Washington. If the Kremlin refuses to negotiate — as he expects — the question becomes whether the United States will pressure the aggressor or the victim. He outlines how cuts to intelligence sharing, weapons deliveries, or access to U.S. defense industrial production would immediately weaken Ukraine’s defenses, since Europe remains unable to fill the gap. Meanwhile, Russia continues its drone and missile attacks against civilians and critical infrastructure, underscoring the humanitarian consequences of any U.S. decision.
Looking ahead, Montgomery foresees the likelihood of another large-scale Russian offensive in 2026 unless real pressure is applied now—particularly through sanctions targeting Russia’s oil and gas revenue. Whether Ukraine can hold the line, he argues, will depend not only on weapons, but on the West’s political will. For all the talk of an “inflection point,” Montgomery cautions that the real turning point will only be clear in hindsight.
The following interview, recorded November 26, 2025, has been edited for length and clarity.
Ia Meurmishvili, IAM Editor-in-Chief: Where do things stand in Ukraine peace negotiations?
Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, Senior Director at FDD: Secretary Rubio has worked hard to move this back to the land of realism, which is that acknowledging Russia’s the aggressor, that Russia is going to have to make some concessions, that Russia’s maximalist demands cannot be fully supported by the United States. That is not how I would describe the [U.S Special Representative Steve] Witkoff plan, which is generously called a Witkoff plan and could be less generously called a Putin plan, that basically restates all of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s grievances and his maximalist demands from Ukraine and from Europe. I think we’re going to end up with an unsolvable conundrum again, because the Ukrainian plan worked with Rubio and the Russian plan worked with Witkoff are incompatible, and when they’re incompatible like this, eventually Vladimir Putin rejects the idea of any concessions, and we move on and the war continues. Putin demonstrated that last two nights ago, right? 420 drones, 23 cruise missiles… what most of us would call like a Tuesday night in Kyiv… killed seven civilians… targeted and struck civilian population and energy critical infrastructure once again, violating the laws of war.
IAM: How did we get here?
Montgomery: President Putin very successfully plays President Trump. What I mean by that is every time he gets a sense that Trump is tiring of Russia’s war effort, pissed off at how Putin won’t make any concessions, Putin will quickly draw up some kind of need for a discussion, a plan to review with the appearance of Russia being a reasonable actor. The driver for this last one was that secondary sanctions were about to be applied last Friday to Chinese, Turkish, and Indian receivers of gas and oil from shadow fleet ships.
Secretary of Treasury [Scott] Bessent had said earlier in the week [that] action was forthcoming. Putin plays this out on Thursday and leaks it to the press to make sure that it’s in play and Bessent’s actions are off the table. From my point of view, since President Trump became president, is eight months of Russia rope-a-doping, know, pulling along President Trump on an endless mission for finding concessions from Ukraine and we’re stuck with where we are now. It should not surprise anyone, and anyone who studies Putin or Russia knows exactly what’s happening.
IAM: Let’s assume that the scenario that you talk about is exactly how things go. Putin rejects it, maybe even blames Ukraine for it. What’s next?
Montgomery: The real question is what Trump does, right? I think the rest of it’s a given. Zelensky tries to find some middle ground but doesn’t concede near enough for Putin’s liking. Putin makes no concessions. Ceasefire discussions dissolve again. The real question is, does Trump do the right thing, which is pressure the belligerent who won’t make any concessions? Or does he do the wrong thing, which is pressure the victim who does make concessions. I’m really afraid that he’ll say it’s because I’m just done with everyone. Well, we were never providing support to Russia. So done with everyone has no impact on the Russian war effort. Done with everyone has a big impact on the Ukrainian war effort. You know, the idea of losing intelligence support or access to the U.S. defense industrial base through what are called PURL, P-U-R-L, a program where you’re Europeans can buy weapons from the defense industrial base for delivery to Ukraine, losing either the targeting or the defense industrial base support would really hurt Ukraine. […] Losing those things would really hurt. It would introduce a lot more risk. It wouldn’t necessarily break Ukraine’s back, but it would really hurt and the Europeans are unable to fill that gap.
IAM: Tell us more about the military contracts. Can they be stopped overnight just like that? My understanding is that it goes into the legal issue of contracts that need to be filled. Can orders just be stopped overnight?
Montgomery: Normally no, but almost every one of these contracts has a U.S. stockpile waiver in it, which means if the U.S. were to say, and by the U.S. I mean, [Under Secretary of War for Policy] Bridge Colby, were to say that weapon there, that Patriot, that AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) air defense weapons, that ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) – although I don’t know those being delivered now – that 155 round, we need it for our stocks. That would stop the delivery.
The answer should be no, it should not have an impact on ongoing deliveries. The more complicated answer is it could, if the United States really took this [position].
IAM: What do you make of the leaks of the phone call transcripts [between Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterparts]?
Montgomery: There’s two sets of leaks here. One is the peace deal was leaked, which I think was probably Russians. Again, I think they were trying to avoid the best of sanctions. The leaks of these phone calls could be one of two groups. One, people who don’t like Witkoff, which is starting to be a growing list of American national security experts who think he is an amateur attempting to do a grown man’s work. Or it was the Ukrainians. I don’t think it’s the Russians, but who knows? Or it’s the Russians because their false flag [operations] have gone out of control. But I’d probably put the Ukrainians above the Russians, but the Russians are probably legitimately on the list. I’d probably first put Americans who are tired with him.
IAM: I would think [the Russians] would not want to discredit Witkoff, right?
Montgomery: No, but when Trump thinks about it, he’s going to be mad at whoever leaked this, because it does make Witkoff look like an amateur and the president has said he’s sending his best man for eight months. I think that whole issue is up in arms. You’ve got [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio involved, Witkoff is involved, Jared Kushner is involved, along with Witkoff, who is no longer alone on this. I think the president recognizes this as problem. Maybe nothing will come of the leaks, but my gut reaction is, you know, people who don’t like Witkoff, Ukrainians, which is the same, and then Russians.
IAM: How do you see the front line now?
Montgomery: I don’t have a perfect understanding, but my assessment is that Ukraine is not going to lose this fight on the ground. I don’t understand how they retake territory, but I understand how they defend themselves and I think they defend well.
Second, I’ve been really impressed with their reorganization into corps commands, which are really divisions by American standards but that doesn’t really matter, but into a better organizational construct. They’re learning and they’re adapting, at the process level as well.
I think they are embracing what we in America call “mission-command,” which is a focus on preserving your warfighters. I’m not sure what you call what the Russians are doing other than a meat grinder, but they are not preserving their warfighters to any degree. Ukraine has to do that because they have a much more serious manpower challenge than the Russians have.
Trying to assess where this is at the end of 2026…. Assuming no peace deal, there will be another Russian counteroffensive in 2026. I’m hoping it will be as unsuccessful as the one was in 2025. I don’t know where Russia runs out of energy. By energy, I mean human resources to execute this war effort. I’m surprised that they’re having to pay very large enlistment bonuses. They’re having to pay large death payments, bereavement payments, to families. The majority of these soldiers are getting several hundred thousand per year, maybe 300,000 per year in this. I think it’s costing [the Kremlin] more and more money to do this. There are less and less age-eligible minorities from their Far East. There are less and less prisoners available for this. At some point he’s calling on his seed corn, on the youth of Russia, who live west of the Urals, from St. Petersburg or from Moscow or from the environs around there. At some point that’s got to have an impact.
I lived in the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1982 and I watched the impact of the war in Afghanistan’s casualties really hit the residents of Moscow and (at the time) Leningrad. So you would think this is coming. You would think that there’s an end to how long he can fund and execute this war effort.
And of course, the other element is if we could cut the money off, which we can do if we make the political decision to cut it off. Here, I criticized President Biden as well. He didn’t cut it off. He didn’t properly sanction China, Turkey and India, and their companies that are taking this shadow fleet oil and gas, even though we knew it was happening. I think he had a fear of gas prices around elections.
President Trump doesn’t have that problem because he’s pumping oil and natural gas like a drunken sailor. The loss of the Russian input into the system would not be as significant. He’s just not doing it because he doesn’t want to pressure Putin.
So I guess that’s a long way of saying I don’t know how we get to the point where Russia is properly pressurized, but I can see two different ways: human resources and financial resources from oil and natural gas.
IAM: Would you say that it’s more important to keep sending weapons to Ukraine and sharing intelligence, or to pressure Russia financially? Which one is going to hurt Russia more?
Montgomery: Look, they both have a big impact. But if I was told I could only have one and they’re both real… In other words, the American weapons would be as many ATACMs as I would need, E-Rams for their aircraft, things like that, 155’s… and the sanctions were really biting sanctions that stopped the seconds, maybe everyone but China, including Hungary, taking oil and natural gas from Russia, I’d probably take the sanctions. I understand the money.
Russia’s federal budget now is 40 % to the war machine and 60 % payments to the base. Both of those have regime credibility impacts for Putin. If he continues the war fight, and if he loses the money for the war fight, he’s got an issue. If he loses money for his payments to the base, he has an issue. That puts real pressure on him. I can measure that pressure. That’s pressure on Putin.
Killing more Russians in the field has to date not put pressure on Putin. So I’d probably take real sanctions over real weapon systems, but I’d like both.
IAM: Do you think we’re at an inflection point now? Or is Russia just going to refuse signing this deal?
Montgomery: I’ve been wrong enough already. I’m not going to predict any more inflection points. So no, I don’t think this is an inflection point only because I refuse to predict another inflection point. I do think a failure here really means we’re on track to winter recovery and summer offensive by Russia starting in May, June through next October.
That gives Ukraine time to prepare for it. It gives Europe and the United States time to prepare Ukraine for it. Will there be combat throughout? I’m not saying combat stops, but I think the ability to execute a significant maneuver warfare campaign is coming to an end. And really now it’s just like punitive strikes and punitive attacks along the line of contact, and missiles and drones against critical infrastructure.
It’ll be another test of the societal resilience of the Ukrainian population over this winter, one I think they’ll pass as they’ve passed every other one. I think if there’s a group that finds the most disdain with the original 28-point plan, that would be Ukraine’s warfighters and citizens who look at this and say, why would we have sacrificed for three and a half years to just throw in the towel like this? Why did my child or my spouse or my parent die to fight for a principle about Ukraine that President Trump negotiates away for us?
This is not a deal like buying a building in New York City or getting naming rights to something in Belgrade. This is war about a principle, the principle of a free Ukraine that’s not a part of a greater Russian empire, that practices a level of democracy and market-based capitalism that does not exist in Russia. Ukraine is not perfect, but the Ukrainians definitely recognize that they’re better off than in Russia. I just don’t think they’re willing to cave on this. We’ll know the inflection point after it happens, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
IAM: Tomorrow is the deadline President Trump initially set for Ukraine to accept the deal. It does not seem they will.
Montgomery: I think the Ukrainians have accepted a deal, it’s just not the deal that Putin has put forward.
