The past few weeks have seen a flurry of activity billed as progress in the Russia-Ukraine peace process. Yet for Ukrainians, the reality remains unchanged: airstrikes still thunder across their cities, homes still burn, lives are still lost. Against this grim backdrop, the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, has seemed more than content to bask in the literal red-carpet treatment afforded by the president of the United States.
Donald Trump, who has anointed himself mediator of this war, has nearly exhausted the lexicon of contradiction. Some days he proclaims that he alone can end this war. Then he insists that peace talks should be left to the two parties. At times he boasts that Putin “respects” him; at others, he castigates Putin for “going absolutely crazy”. This month, Trump vacillated between putting US troops on the table and ruling it out. Now he is reportedly considering using US private military firms for the job.
For those watching – whether in Kyiv, Moscow, Washington or beyond – the effect is dizzying. Policy by improvisation is not strategy. And in a war where lives hang on the credibility of US commitments, unpredictability is not strength. It is abdication.
So what is Trump doing, Nobel peace prize ambitions aside? Has he finally realised that Putin has no interest in a treaty that falls short of his maximalist goals? Or is this simply another chapter in a familiar playbook – headline chasing, image first, strategy later – where the costs will be borne not in Washington but on the streets of Kyiv?
After a long learning curve, Trump may finally be realising that Putin has played him – that the two are not the close friends he once imagined. His repeated threats to impose new sanctions and tariffs on Russia are one example. Yet Trump has also shown time and again his willingness to forgive and forget, so long as Putin offers a new promise that this time things will be different.
In the meantime, Ukraine appears to have found a workaround for direct US military aid, though one that comes at immense cost. With European financing, Kyiv can keep buying US weapons while Ukraine and the EU scale up production. It is hardly optimal, but it sustains the status quo: Ukraine survives, Trump claims credit for US arms profits, and Europe keeps Russia bogged down elsewhere. As long as this arrangement holds, the war will go on. Russia will continue to attack, but it will not defeat Ukraine. And in the absence of genuine US leadership, the conflict will persist as long as Putin can throw bodies forward.
At the same time as Ukraine scrambles for survival, Putin is playing a different game altogether. He is the unlikely winner in this mayhem. Unable to seize an upper hand at the negotiating table through battlefield victories, he has fallen back on the tools that have served him for decades: obfuscation, manipulation and the grinding down of adversaries. Putin may not yet have secured everything on his wishlist, but he is nothing if not patient.
Unlike democratic leaders, Putin faces no checks – only an inner circle of military and conservative elites with an imperialist worldview. To them, Ukraine is not just another territory to be bartered away to help boost Trump’s ego. It is the key to restoring Russia’s lost greatness.
Putin also understands that US audiences crave clarity; they tire quickly of drawn-out talks and muddled messages. Fatigue becomes Putin’s ally. The tedium, the phone calls, the visits that go nowhere – these are not failures of diplomacy. They are the strategy. Once the war fades from headlines, his hope is to strike a bargain in the shadows: sanctions lifted, aid to Ukraine frozen. For Putin, every hour of confusion is an investment. The question is whether anyone else at the table has the stamina to see through it.
The real loser in this, other than Ukraine, is Trump himself. For all his posturing, he risks selling himself short if his ambitions stop at a medal in Oslo. He imagines more – and he might even achieve it. If he emerges with a clear policy to end the war, this could be his Reagan moment: a chance to be celebrated as the saviour of the free world.
Trump is not wrong that Joe Biden was too cautious to claim such a mantle. Trump, in contrast, could. Whether or not Putin personally respects him is debatable, but Putin does respect US military power. And there are options available, many well short of all-out war: the bipartisan Graham-Blumenthal billexpanded air support, lifting missile restrictions and major increases in direct military aid, among others.
Like any autocrat, Putin can be coerced. Biden was too timid to test that premise. Trump may not be. After all, unpredictability is his calling card. Should Trump force Putin to back down and end the war, he would secure a legacy as the unexpected hero. But if he allows Putin to dictate the outcome, the laurels will fall to Moscow. History will record not a peacemaker but a president who helped Russia, the US’s longtime adversary, reclaim its imperial standing while cementing the decline of US hegemony.
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