I'm John Batchel with John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations, former National

Security Advisor writing in the Telegraph, that's London reporting, about the word ceasefire

and what needs to be watched very carefully when you plunge yourself into committing to a ceasefire.

Seastfire plus negotiations, ceasefire plus negotiations and peacekeepers.

We've heard these words for years, John.

They're usually associated with blue helmets.

My experience with blue helmets in the Middle East is that when the blue helmets come in,

the enemy takes advantage.

Is that the same for the word ceasefire?

Well, I think it's a risk for Ukraine. And, you know, we are all talking about these negotiations that are about to start. And there's a kind of implicit premise in what everybody's saying that when negotiations are about to start, there will be a ceasefire on

the battlefield, presumably along the existing front lines. That presumption, I think, is misguided

in the case of Ukraine and potentially dangerous for the Ukrainians and therefore for us.

And the reason for that is that with the circumstances here of an unprovoked Russian

aggression and invasion of Ukraine first in 2014 and then expanded in 2022, if you have a ceasefire

and negotiations turn out to be protracted, that ceasefire line could become a new Ukrainian-Russian border.

And that would in effect give Putin really doubling the amount of Ukrainian territory that would be under Russian control.

It could become a new de facto border that gets very hard to change over time.

Now, it's certainly, while it's commonplace to have a ceasefire while negotiations start,

it's not invariably what happens during the World War II and the Chinese Civil War.

The Chinese communist held negotiations with Shanghai Shek and the real government of China under a doctrine they call fight, fight,

fight, talk, talk, prove very successful for the Chinese communist, really disadvantageous in the extreme for Chiang Kai

Shek. So it's not a certainty one way or the other what's going to be in somebody's

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