Optimism over direct talks between Putin and Trump had a short half-life.
What seemed like a positive step toward substantive talks between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is now in doubt. It’s an old story. After the two world leaders had a phone conversation on Oct. 16, plans were floated for a one-on-one meeting in Budapest, Hungary. But lower-level staff working on the details came to loggerheads, and optimism faded.
Putin Threatened to Escalate?
Prior to Trump’s long diplomatic call with Putin, the US president indicated he was considering providing Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, which seems to have prompted the Russian leader to speed-dial 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. But when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat down with Trump on Oct. 17, perhaps expecting to put in an order for those longer-range cruise missiles, he found the offer was off the table.
Zelensky was disappointed and offered his own take on the situation. According to a Just the News commentary:
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Putin returned to diplomacy and talked to Trump … when there was a possibility that the US would supply Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles. But ‘as soon as the pressure eased a little, the Russians began to try to drop diplomacy, postpone the dialogue,’ Zelensky said … in a Telegram post.”
When Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, it became clear that Russia had declared Tomahawks in the possession of Kyiv as an escalation in the conflict that the Russians did not want and to which they would have to respond. The US State Department released a press statement: “The Secretary emphasized the importance of upcoming engagements as an opportunity for Moscow and Washington to collaborate on advancing a durable resolution of the Russia-Ukraine war, in line with President Trump’s vision.” However, following that phone conversation, any meeting between Trump and Putin was shelved.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had another interpretation, which was more cryptic: “The parties engaged in a constructive discussion focusing on possible specific steps to implement the understandings reached during President Vladimir Putin’s October 16 telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump.” Those “possible specific steps,” however, did not include the hoped-for meeting in Budapest.
Trump remains positive on the potential for negotiated peace, “exhort[ing] both sides to lay down their arms and freeze the conflict in place. The Ukrainian president immediately agreed to the idea, but the Kremlin rebuked the call for peace, which would see Kyiv keep the roughly 22% of the Donbas region that Russia has been unable to occupy in more than 11 years of war,” the New York Post observed.
However, Kremlin forces, moving by inchstones in fighting to occupy the 22%, are paying a terrible price. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that, as of Oct. 22, the number of killed and wounded Russian soldiers has topped 1,133,000 since the war began 1,335 days ago.
We have seen this movie before: The West threatens to apply greater military or economic pressure on Russia; Putin suggests he wants to engage in peace or ceasefire talks; emissaries meet and find the Russians as intransigent as ever. According to the Institute for the Study of War’s “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment,” “Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated that Russia is unwilling to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine that does not result in Ukraine’s complete capitulation.”
Does Trump See Through Russia’s Foot-Dragging?
Curiously, Trump does not acknowledge Putin’s foot-dragging strategy publicly. Although the US president has threatened to provide Ukraine with advanced weapons and to impose secondary sanctions, he has not followed through. Until he does, it seems the US negotiating position is stalled.
Surprisingly, the European Union is putting teeth in its proactive moves to underwrite Ukraine’s war costs. “They [the EU] also plan to push forward with plans to use billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets to help fund Ukraine’s war efforts, despite some misgivings about the legality and consequences of such a step,” the Associated Press reported.
The United States must not continue playing Putin’s game.
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