“Nobody believes that Russia would live up to any ceasefire,” Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges (Ret.), told TVP World. Hodges further stated that Putin only put forth the idea of a three-day ceasefire because he doesn’t want drone or rocket strikes on Red Square during Russia’s Victory Day Parade on May 9 in Moscow.
“Nobody believes Russia would live up to any ceasefire,” said Ben Hodges (@general_ben), former commander of the U.S. Army, during an interview with TVP World discussing how Russia wants a ceasefire only to stop Ukrainian strikes on Red Square during the upcoming Victory Day… pic.twitter.com/boW3qXPEvM
— TVP World (@TVPWorld_com) May 6, 2025
In another interview with Telewizja wPolsce24, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe said that “Poland is a great country, a host for the American military. Today, about 10,000 of our soldiers are stationed here. Of course, I can’t guarantee that this number will not change, but today it is a significant number and our soldiers really like being here because of the great infrastructure.”
Hodges was referring to rumors that U.S. President Trump may move soldiers out of Poland.
“You have excellent training grounds,” the retired lieutenant general continued, adding that “the level of professionalism of your soldiers is also very high.”
Poland’s Chief of General Staff Gen. Wiesław Kukuła, in turn, emphasized that maintaining defense financing at 4 percent of GDP “will bring the effects we expect.”
As a guest at this year’s Defence24 conference, Hodges revealed what the main expectations are for the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague. Retired in 2018, he also served as the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), specializing in NATO, the Transatlantic relationship, and international security, and is presently NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics and is a Distinguished Fellow with GLOBSEC.
Most recently, Chess Grandmaster Gary Kasparov posted an article regarding Ukraine on his site by Hodges, in which the general states: “Europe has a crucial role to build a sustainable and just peace.” He then proceeds to outline the steps Europe must take to “not only (shape) the outcome of the war in Ukraine but also in contributing more broadly towards burden-sharing within the Alliance.”
At the end of his piece, Hodges was clear that “Europe must step up” in the face of “a Trump administration that seems disturbingly aligned with Moscow.” Saying that a Putin win would lead to “severe, lasting, and deeply destabilizing” costs, the general then asked: “Will Europe rise to meet them—or shrink in the shadow of its own hesitation?”
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