General Milley: War will end at negotiation table, neither Russia nor Ukraine will achieve their goals

General Mark Milley, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that neither Russia nor Ukraine is likely to achieve their military aims, and he believes the war will end at the negotiating table. 

Source: Milley in the interview with Financial Times

Quote: "It will be almost impossible for the Russians to achieve their political objectives by military means. It is unlikely that Russia is going to overrun Ukraine. It's just not going to happen," Milley said.

"It is also very, very difficult for Ukraine this year to kick the Russians out of every inch of Russian-occupied Ukraine. It's not to say that it can't happen… But it's extraordinarily difficult. And it would require essentially the collapse of the Russian military," he added. 

Asked if the moment for diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine had passed, Milley said that "we’re weeks away from the beginning of spring, but it’s a rolling window. There’s opportunities at any moment in time."

Details: However, both sides were "dug in pretty hard on their objectives" and unwilling to negotiate, according to Milley.

Milley said the conflict echoed a lesson from the Second World War that aggression must be stopped "with firmness, deterrence, and military power", though he noted that with Russia’s nuclear arsenal the stakes were now higher.

"In this particular case, it’s against a country that is large and is nuclear-armed. So you have to be very, very conscious about managing escalation. At the same time, you have to uphold the principles for which the United Nations was founded and which the international order is resting on," he said.

Background: Two days ago, Milley stated that Russia has lost strategically, operationally and tactically the year after the beginning of the full-scale invasion. 

He also claimed that the American side currently sees no signs of a possible Russian attack on Kyiv.

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