The land-bridge precedents are the historical parallels John Kiriakou put forward in August 2025, on the day Donald Trump met Volodymyr Zelenskyy and seven European leaders in Washington, to argue that the least-discussed Russian demand was the one most likely to decide the negotiation.
What he heard
Kiriakou said two things had reached him that day not as major announcements but as asides. The first was that Russia had apparently accepted major non-NATO ally status for Ukraine — the standing enjoyed by Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, which are not members of the alliance but receive the benefits of membership.[1] The second was that what the Russians “really really want is a land bridge through Crimea.”[2]
His assessment of the second was that it is a big ask and an important one — and that it might be the linchpin of an agreement. Which raised his question: “So why are we not talking about it? Why are none of the networks talking about it?”[2]
The precedent nobody used
The networks had, he noted, the former United States ambassadors to Ukraine and to Russia on air, and John Bolton on every channel that would still have him. And yet “nobody is making the analogy with the land bridge that connected West Germany with West Berlin. It’s been done before.”[3] His verdict on the omission was two clauses: it is doable, and they are not talking about it.[3]
Rall extended the list — Germany’s demand for a corridor to Danzig, and East Pakistan separated by hundreds of miles from Pakistan proper, which he conceded did not work out — and both men noted that any theorised Palestinian state has always required a corridor between Gaza and the West Bank for the same reason. Kiriakou’s answer to that was that it will have to exist, because otherwise the thing does not make sense: “It’s as simple as that.”[4]
The complaint underneath
The episode is one of Kiriakou’s recurring criticisms of American television coverage of a negotiation. In any other period, he said, viewers would be shown charts and graphs: this is what one side wants, this is the counter-offer, this is why each side wants what it wants. Instead there was no analysis at all — only biased talking heads announcing that the deal was terrible.[5][6]