Invigorated by his Gaza “triumph”, universal praise still ringing in his ears, Donald Trump last week turned to Ukraine, a conflict he previously described as easy to resolve.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was summoned back into the White House on Friday, hoping to ride the wave of all-is-possible optimism and to make the case for US supply of long-range Tomahawk missiles. But Vladimir Putin, in a two-hour surprise phone call, got in first, warning of the dangers of escalation, and successfully offer offfering new face-to-face talks in Budapest.
Trump told reporters he had implored both leaders simply to stop fighting. “Stop the war immediately. You stop at the battle line and both sides should go home, go to their families.” It was a familiar refrain, an old formula for peace based on a false equivalence of both sides that would leave Russia with huge territorial gains and Ukrainian surrender.
Since the Alaska summit in August, observers thought they had seen Trump growing exasperated with Putin and increasingly willing to accommodate Zelenskiy. Trump was threatening to enforce a 12-day deadline for Putin to end the war and talking of sanctions. He even posted on social media: “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”
RM Block
In recent days he threatened to throw US weight behind Ukraine and spoke positively about selling it the Tomahawks that are top of Zelenskiy’s wish list. How serious he was is another matter.
Trump’s surprise call with Putin on Thursday was timed to allow the American president to deflect pressure from Kyiv and allies to supply the missiles. After the Zelenskiy meeting he claimed the Tomahawks might be needed by the US for a future conflict: “We don’t want to be giving away things that we need to protect our country.”
Trump, warned by Putin that the supply of Tomahawks would seriously damage US-Russian relations and tempted by the latter’s suggestion of improved trade relations, was telling the Russian leader and the world that he did not want to pre-empt talks by agreeing prematurely to the supply. Or perhaps implicitly that he was actively opposed. Not, his critics will suggest – albeit quietly so as not to offend the “great negotiator” – the strongest negotiating hand.
Zelenskiy has come away upbeat, having learned that dealing with Trump requires it. But Ukrainians now worry they have lost the momentum built on US frustration with Moscow. Instead of hitting Russia hard with long-range strikes to force genuine negotiations from a regime it believes only understands force, Kyiv finds itself back in a cycle of talks that have already proved futile. Trump is a slow learner
