US President Donald Trump rarely ceases to boast of his “great relationship” with Vladimir Putin. But a skeptical world will soon discover if this supposed mental tuning is worth something.
The Russian President, author of a brutal invasion and not caused to Ukraine, responded in the traditional Moscow style to the US plan for an immediate ceasefire that the Trump administration forced Kiev to support. Putin produced a long that would be unacceptable to Ukraine. But they may have been designed to test a US president who is desperate for the type of victory that a truce could represent.
Vladimir Putin did not reject Trump’s proposal, considered it “great and correct” and said that, in principle, would support her. However, it was careful not to alienate a US president who has already offered a series of concessions to Russia before the beginning of formal peace negotiations, including the acceptance that Ukraine would never have a way for adherence to the NATO.
But Putin’s objections and appeals for new discussions, including Donald Trump, were an attempt to gain time, with his troops about to expel the Ukrainian forces from the Russian region of Kursk – one of the few exchange coins Kiev would have in future peace negotiations.
Putin also raised questions about the monitoring of any ceasefire, and if Ukraine would be allowed to respond during any combat cessation, in a way that suggested that Putin would already be trying to shape any eventual agreement to ensure Russian domain. Putin also referred to the need to deal with the “deep causes” of the war. This is a code for a series of Russian complaints that include the existence of a democratic government in Kiev. It also refers to the allegations that Moscow is threatened by the expansion of NATO after the Cold War and its desire to see the alliance troops taken from former communist states in the orbit of the Soviet Union, such as Poland and Romania.
Russia’s response thus escapes its classic diplomatic manual, which usually seeks to attract interlocutors to exhaustive negotiations that accumulate delays and conditions that allow Kremlin to pursue its strategic goals during this time period.
What happened on Thursday shows how difficult it will be for Donald Trump government to remove Russia from its position and start serious negotiations on a ceasefire, as Russia’s stoppage contrasted Trump’s hurry for valuable advance, as their trade policies triggered falls in the stock market and thrown a cloud over the economy. “I think we’ll be in a good condition to do this. We want to end this soon, “said Donald Trump in the Oval Room this Thursday, in the one that is an explosion of optimism that shocked reality.
Optimistic Trump despite Putin’s stoppage
Donald Trump did his best in Putin’s response, saying he had issued a “very promising statement, but [que] It was not complete. ” He added: “Now let’s see if Russia is there or not. And if not, it will be a very disappointing moment for the world. ” Trump’s optimism was understandable, as the US president is looking for an impulse for an incipient diplomatic initiative. But his willingness to ignore a new set of Putin’s costly conditions made a strong contrast to his fury when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat in the oval room and tried to explain why he would not trust Russia’s word in a peacekeeping agreement.
Almirante James Stavridis, already retired, came to say that the Russian leader is drawing a careful line: “If you put on a scale between ‘nyet’, ‘no’ and ‘yes’, he [Putin] It’s right in the middle, ”said Jim Sciutto of CNN. Stavridis, a former NATO ally ally commander in Europe, also stated that the Russian President would take some punches of Trump, but would not stop pressing toward his own goals.
Trump again said that there is an ocean between the US and the largest land war in Europe since World War II. But those who are closest to the threat are much less optimistic about the peace proposals of the United States. “I am pessimistic and skeptical about Russia’s intentions and Russia’s will to continue with just and sustainable peace,” said Latvia Defense Minister Andris SPRūds, CNN International Isares. SPRūds warned that Russia is using its typical salami tactics to achieve its strategic goals, that is, cutting its comprehensive political goals and dealing with the same “slice slice”.
Trump has praiseworthy goals, although Putin may not share them
If Donald Trump forcing a lasting and sustainable peace in Ukraine, he will achieve a great achievement that can be worth the Nobel Prize of Peace that he supposedly so longs for. More importantly, thousands of lives – Ukrainian and Russian – will be saved. There may also be some truth in the frequent allegation of government officials that only this president has the possibility of ending the war. While President Joe Biden gathered the Western Alliance to provide Ukraine weapons, ammunition, and financial aid that saved his independence, there has never been a way for peace negotiations with Putin, who was sentenced to ostracism after his Ukraine invasion three years ago.
Donald Trump may also be exploring the tiredness of many Americans regarding the cost of this support, although their claim that the US has spent $ 350 billion (about 322 billion euros) is a real exaggeration. And some analysts believe that the new administration is just stating the obvious, that Ukraine will not be able to release the oriental regions captured by Russia and Crimea, attached by Putin in 2014. In addition, there is an agreement, even among the European governments who have combined Zelensky after Trump’s intimidation, that some kind of division will be needed to end the war.
But Trump’s excessive deference to Putin in his first term and his initial compliments to the invasion of Ukraine, along with his longtime fascination with Russian leader, raise doubts about the reasons for their efforts to quickly end the war. Since taking office for the second time, the president set Zelensky tightly at a notorious photo shoot in the Oval Room and has changed the official American government sympathies of the victim of a cruel attack for his perpetrator, Putin. The president cut the vital sharing of US information services that helps Ukraine on the battlefield and protects his wanders from drone attacks. Trump also interrupted US military assistance to force Zelensky to accept his search for an immediate ceasefire. This interruption sent a clear message to Zelensky that Trump could end the war in his terms if he wanted.
But will such a pressure be exerted on Putin, now that he, unlike the Ukrainian leader, rejected Trump’s terms? After all, the US president said for weeks that he was convinced that Putin wanted to stop the fight. However, Thursday’s response shows that at least for now Kremlin wants to keep war.
The president threatened this week the rates on Russian imports and bank sanctions that, according to his own, would devastate Moscow’s finances, but after three years of efforts to cut Russia from the global economy, commercial interactions with the United States are minimal. And Moscow has established channels, including through China, to support its war economy.
Trump refused to say which influence could exert on Putin that could work, but it was clear since the president returned to the White House that sees Ukraine as a springboard for a restored superpower relationship with Russia. The president, for example, asked Moscow to return to the G7. The rich nations club was known as G8 until Russia was expelled after capturing Crimea. And it seems that Trump can barely wait for the opportunity to make a summit with Putin personally, which would restore the place of the Russian leader on the world scenario. And Trump’s expansionist rhetoric over Canada and Greenland recalls Putin’s justifications for the invasion of Ukraine. Then there can be a time when incentives for a wider relationship with Washington convince Putin that it is time to archive, probably temporarily, their obsession with Ukraine.
In Trump’s first term, unbridled speculation was if he was compromised by Russia, because Moscow intervened in the 2016 election to help him, as the US information agencies evaluated. And because Trump admired so much Putin. The roots of Trump’s obsessions remain obscure, although the allegations that it is a Moscow’s asset have never been proven and still seem absurd. But in his second term, Trump attacked US longtime allies and blamed Zelensky for the war rather than the Russian leader who started it.
This is why traditional US foreign policy experts and governments are concerned about what the answer would be if Putin asked Trump to help expel Zelensky as a condition for a peace agreement. Especially because the US President has falsely suggested that the Ukrainian leader was a dictator. And how would the president answer if the Russians asked to remove the troops from the born from Eastern Europe to address what Putin falsely calls “the deep causes” of the Ukrainian conflict?
The question is whether Trump is negotiating with Putin or if the Russian leader is manipulating him.
