Ex-US Army commander on Russia peace plan and NATO attack

In October 2025, speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior NATO official told journalists that Moscow was “taking a professional approach to learning the lessons” of the war in Ukraine. Combined with the militarization of Russia’s economy, the official said, this means that in some ways, the country will “actually have a modern, more capable force that it had when the war [started].” For NATO’s eastern members like Poland and the Baltic countries, this analysis casts an ominous light on the latest U.S. “peace plan,” which has been widely criticized for favoring Moscow. To find out what a deal like the one Trump is pushing would mean for the security of Russia’s western neighbors, Meduza senior news editor Sam Breazeale spoke to retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe.