President Trump stepped back from his demands for an immediate 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine following calls with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, instead suggesting Moscow and Kyiv should start negotiations over what broader peace talks might look like.
The president’s rhetoric since the calls indicates a shift that will be welcomed in the Kremlin, which has expressed an openness to peace talks but set maximalist terms that are impossible for Zelensky or his European partners to swallow.
Trump’s reported deference to Putin surprised European leaders who he briefed soon after, according to Axios. Trump has repeatedly threatened sanctions against Putin for continued devastating attacks on Ukraine, but has yet to follow through.
Even if he did, it is unlikely to change Putin’s calculations, said Mark Shrad, a Russia-Ukraine relations expert and political science professor at Villanova University.
“I’m kind of a pessimist when it comes to sanctions across the board, especially when it comes to Putin,” he said, noting that the United States and Europe have repeatedly drawn red lines and imposed new sanctions over Russia’s incursions into Ukraine, starting in 2014.
“And the Russian economy just keeps plodding along. And it hurts, yeah. But, you know, the Russians are used to pain. I don’t think another round of sanctions is going to do anything that the previous umpteen rounds of sanctions haven’t done.”
Ukraine’s backers say the only solution is forcing Russia into a weaker position on the battlefield by arming Kyiv’s military.
Trump has outlined a global sanctions regime in which Russia’s crucial oil exports are cut off, by imposing penalties on both Russia and its key trading partners. Following the calls on Monday, he told reporters he remained optimistic that Putin would come around to peace.
“I think he’s had enough. It’s been a long time. This has been going on for more than three years,” Trump said. He added that Putin was having trouble “extraditing” himself from the war, echoing comments from Vice President Vance heading into the discussion.
“I’m not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war,” Vance told reporters on Air Force Two.
Chris Miller, a professor of international history at Tufts University, said the U.S. wasn’t giving Putin any reason to come up with a way out of Ukraine.
“I think the Trump administration has overestimated Russia’s desire for a deal. In fact, Russia thinks it can still win the war on the battlefield, which is why it has not offered meaningful concessions,” he said in an email.
“Unless the Trump administration takes steps to weaken Russia’s military prospects, the Kremlin will keep betting on the battlefield as the best way to achieve its goal of controlling Ukraine over the long run.”
Putin has ignored Trump’s public pleas to end attacks on Ukraine, reportedly launching its largest drone attack yet on regions including Kyiv on Sunday, just a day before the scheduled call with the U.S. leader.
Russia was quick to release a statement on the two-hour Putin-Trump call after its conclusion on Monday, through its state news agency TASS.
Putin said in the statement that Russia “is ready and will continue to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a potential future peace treaty outlining a number of positions, such as settlement principles, the timeframe for signing a potential peace agreement, and so on, including a potential ceasefire for a certain period in case relevant agreements are reached.”
Trump has already signaled support for some of Putin’s demands, such as keeping Ukraine out of NATO and recognizing Crimea as Russian territory. However, Russia has insisted on far larger territorial concessions and the toppling of Zelensky, conditions seen as non-starters in Europe.
Trump characterized his call with Putin as “excellent” in a Truth Social post later Monday afternoon, saying Russia and Ukraine would immediately meet for direct talks on ending the war.
“The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,” Trump wrote.
The two countries have continued some communications, mainly over prisoner swaps. Putin last week skipped direct talks in Istanbul that he proposed, but a low-level delegation met with the Ukrainian team and agreed on a swap of 1,000 prisoners.
Without U.S. support, experts say Ukraine may be able to hold the line against Russian forces, but would struggle to sustain a military resistance against Moscow’s much larger army. Hawks in the Senate are calling for Trump to do more to pressure Russia, and contradicting his optimism about Putin.
“I think Vladimir Putin is a liar and that they’re always going to ask for too much, and they’re going to use that as a pretext to continue to kill, rape and kidnap Ukrainians,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said this week.
Tillis said administration officials “need to lean into Putin and let him know that we’ll be there for the duration if he doesn’t come to terms” on a peace deal, noting the Senate has a sanctions package ready to go.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last month said Putin was “playing America like a patsy.”
Democrats have ripped into Trump for his failure so far in delivering on his promise to bring a swift end to the war.
“What Vladimir Putin is doing now is playing for time,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a hearing on Tuesday.
“He’s playing this president like a fiddle, and the longer he plays it, the more opportunity he has to gain territory in Ukraine, and the harder it’s going to be to get him to the table.”
Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s foreign minister, said Europe can’t afford to wait on Trump when it comes to combatting Putin. The European Union on Tuesday passed its 17th sanctions package against Russia since it invaded Ukraine.
“Of course, it would be helpful if the United States slammed its fist on the table — if that much-discussed sanctions package presented by the senators could be adopted,” Barrot told Radio France.
“But without waiting for the U.S. to act, let us take responsibility ourselves. Let us deter Vladimir Putin from continuing this war. Let us push him to abandon his imperialist delusion by enacting sanctions that are truly dissuasive.”
Laura Kelly contributed reporting