Radar Armenia's interlocutor is Arman Grigoryan, a doctor of political science and professor at Lehigh University in the US.

- The most notable event of the past week was Donald Trump's phone conversations with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, after which he announced that both countries want peace to be established. Can we already say that the Russian-Ukrainian war is close to an end? If not, what is preventing it?

- Trump's statements, his phone conversation with Putin, the statement of the US Secretary of Defense, the verbal whipping of Europeans by the US Vice President, and, finally, the reaction of the Ukrainian President and some European officials to all this show that the prospect of change (and not only in this issue) is quite serious. But I would not rush to announce the war's end in Ukraine. To achieve this, Trump will still have to overcome severe US and European resistance. In the US, Democrats have already begun to prepare the ground for accusing Trump of losing Ukraine if peace is achieved there. They are actively promoting the view that if they had remained in power, they would have continued the struggle and eventually brought Putin to his knees. They are also using these shifts to keep the narrative that Trump is a Russian agent alive. I think that there are also people in the US national security elite and the military-industrial complex who are very concerned not only with peace in Ukraine but also with the possibility of a new détente with Russia because they need an enemy, Russia, to justify their vast military spending and to defend their inflated positions. These people will resist Trump and his policies. Of course, it is also true that there are some differences within that elite. It seems that part of it has concluded that if they do not end the war now, Russia may achieve more serious successes in Ukraine, which they have long been unable to oppose. There is an acute shortage of workforce in Ukraine. They can also not ensure the supply of ammunition at a sufficient level. Therefore, the war must be stopped now, or they must directly confront Russia. They no longer see any other way out. Confrontation will also increase the likelihood of nuclear escalation. Therefore, the only reasonable option is to stop the war as soon as possible. There is also an important issue here. It is one thing to talk about peace in the abstract, which everyone and their cousins ​​are for, and it is quite another thing to talk about the conditions of peace. In this regard, the most interesting was the statement of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who also spoke about parameters and noted that Ukraine's neutrality and possible territorial concessions should be the subject of discussion. But how easy it will be to get the agreement of the Western elites and the Ukrainians in exchange for Ukraine's neutrality and recognition of the annexation of Crimea and four regions, I don't know.

- And what do the opponents of peace offer? Stopping Russia's advance has become very difficult. Ukraine has a considerable workforce problem, and the weapons and financial support provided by the West are not enough to stop the Russians. Despite the difficult conditions, it is better to agree to them now than later, when the Russians will seize more territory.

- I agree with you. But the problem is that we are dealing with two different interests. One is the state strategic interests of both the West and Ukraine, and the other is the interests of their elites, which cannot be identified. Even if what you say is true, these elites will pay a hefty political price for going to peace with any package of concessions. Therefore, they can oppose your logic with well-known slogans about democracy, international law, and dictator Putin and continue the terrible process of destroying an entire generation of young Ukrainians. They may even think that, regardless of everything, it is not in Putin's interest to move beyond a particular line, even if he has the necessary military capabilities to do so, because he will have to establish Russian control over those parts of Ukraine where the population is very hostile to Russia and where there may be a danger of guerrilla warfare. Therefore, the West and the Ukrainian elite may think it is better to lose a few regions and end the matter with a freeze on military operations than to make peace now, with more minor losses, but with a peace treaty.

- The US president also discussed Ukraine's possible membership in NATO, noting that this is unlikely and impractical. Does this mean that NATO will stop its expansion policy?

- It can't mean anything else if they succeed in establishing peace in Ukraine. Ukraine's neutrality at the cost of guaranteeing. There are no other candidates in the region anymore. Georgia has lost interest. Belarus is strongly tied to Russia and has no such desire. There is no point in provoking a new crisis to bring Moldova into NATO if Ukraine is already not on the NATO membership list. Azerbaijan does not need to become a member of NATO because it already has allies like Turkey and Israel, and at the same time, good relations with Russia, which it should not want to spoil. Armenia remains, but such interest in Armenia does not exist, despite the propaganda of the mixed crowd of "Westerners" that insults all of our intellect and disgraces our country. In general, if the war in Ukraine ends with a peace treaty that guarantees Ukraine's neutrality, it could open the door to détente with Russia, which some of the American elite consider desirable because their main concern is China. And further expansion of NATO with such détente is pointless and incompatible. Instead of expanding, NATO should probably be more concerned with maintaining the alliance's stability, which has been seriously shaken by the events in Ukraine and by the positions adopted by Trump. A well-known American analyst, Colonel Douglas McGregor, even predicts the imminent end of NATO. I am not sure it will come to that, but interestingly, people like McGregor make such predictions.

- Mr. Grigoryan, these events are also (and first of all) interesting to us because of their consequences for our region, especially since we have already witnessed what happened in the Caucasus due to that war. What are your assessments? What consequences can all this have on our region?

- Its most significant impact will be that the problem of strategic uncertainty in our region will decrease. For 3 years now, Armenia has been thinking that, on the one hand, Russia cannot be relied on because they are up to their eyeballs in the quagmire of war in Ukraine. On the other hand, they see this as an opportunity to remove the country from Russia's sphere of influence and turn to the West. Such arguments will lose their appeal to some extent. In Azerbaijan, they can no longer be sure that the Russians will disregard this or that because they value Turkey's positive neutrality in Ukraine very highly, which will be jeopardized if the Russians take any challenging steps against them.

Interviewed by Arman Galoyan

Photo by Onnik James Krikorian