If Trump’s goal was to force Ukraine into a disadvantageous cease-fire, that effort has failed. If it was to appease Moscow into submission, that failed, too.
It finally seems like Donald Trump is losing patience with Vladimir Putin.
The president took to his proprietary social media venue over the weekend to lament that his Russian counterpart “has gone absolutely crazy.” The evidence Trump cited for his contention that “something has happened” to Putin, the ongoing bombardment of Ukrainian cities, is unsatisfying. As Rich noted, Putin is the only figure in this dynamic who has displayed any consistency. But the president’s frustration seems sincere. In a subsequent post, the president warned Putin that he was “playing with fire.”
It’s not just talk. “President Donald Trump could move ahead with new sanctions on Russia in the coming days,” CNN reported on Tuesday. Trump himself hasn’t approved any new restrictions on Russian economic activity, but other outlets have confirmed that Trump officials are sitting on a suite of new sanctions, including efforts to target the Russian energy sector and its patrons, that could be rolled out soon. All that keeps Trump from pulling the trigger on new sanctions is that it amounts to a tacit admission of failure. “Trump has said privately he is concerned new sanctions could push Russia away from peace talks,” CNN reported.
If peace talks collapse, it will not be because Trump hasn’t been pliant enough. The president has bent over backward to grant Moscow concession after undue concession and ceded to Moscow advantages on the battlefield.
Shortly after the infamous Oval Office confrontation between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vice President JD Vance — an argument in which Trump was goaded into participation — the U.S. halted intelligence sharing with Ukrainian forces. That deprived Ukrainian forces of the information necessary to use U.S. weapons platforms efficiently and accurately, contributing to the loss of Ukraine-held territory in Russia’s Kursk Oblast. That occupation would have been a vital bargaining chip in peace talks with Moscow if they were conducted competently and amid more auspicious circumstances.
The withholding of U.S. arms and ordnance has been a hardship. Ukrainian forces are rationing defensive weapons such as Patriot air-defense interceptors; Russian drone and missile volleys have overwhelmed Kyiv and other cities, where civilians are increasingly under threat. A lack of ammunition forced Ukrainian forces to stage tactical retreats from the front lines. It is a testament both to Ukraine’s domestic arms industry “scale-up” and the noble but insufficient efforts of Kyiv’s European allies to fill the gaps left by America’s retreat that Ukraine hasn’t been forced to give up even more ground.
It does now seem like the president is slowly backing away from his efforts to coax and flatter Putin into giving up on his territorial ambitions in Europe. Earlier this month, the Trump White House lifted a hold on the sale of weapons to Ukraine. This week, the U.S. and its European partners lifted the “range restrictions” on Western-provided missiles fired on Russian targets inside the Federation. If the president moves forward with new sanctions on Russia, we may soon recapitulate something resembling a coherent policy of opposition to Moscow’s expansionist war.
And yet the losses America’s partners in Europe sustained as a result of this ill-conceived diplomatic offensive are real. They detract from the leverage Ukraine and its allies might have brought to the negotiating table. If Trump’s goal was to force Ukraine into a disadvantageous cease-fire, that strategy has been a failure. If his objective was to appease Moscow into submission, that failed, too. The strategy Trump and his brain trust pursued in the first few months of the president’s second term has come up short. Trump needs either a new strategy or a new brain trust. Perhaps both.