Trump's Embrace of Putin Could Lead to Endless War
Russia is already escalating after the Oval Office ambush
The February 28 Oval Office berating of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the Russian nesting doll of contemporary geopolitics; it has many layers. One comment from U.S. President Donald Trump has stuck with me: he said, “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” raising his voice and gesturing with his hands. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia, ever hear of that deal?” he added.
While Trump's affinity for Russian leader Vladimir Putin is well-known, his telling of the relationship with him seemed to go further than what we have seen publicly. The addition of "with me" suggests that he personally identifies with the Russian autocrat. His angry denial of the 2016 Russian interference campaign further suggests that he feels that he has something to hide. Declassified U.S. intelligence from 2017 revealed that Putin personally ordered the 2016 U.S. election interference campaign to get Trump elected and Trump egged it on.
As U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators plan to meet next week in Saudi Arabia amid a Washington pressure campaign on Kyiv, Trump's emotional and secretive relationship with Putin has become increasingly consequential. As Trump has embraced Moscow, Russian officials have become more vocal about their intransigence: on March 6, Putin said that Russia does not intend to "give in to anyone" or make any compromises in a peace negotiation. The result of any deal could be a disaster for Ukraine--and the world--by the U.S. caving to Russian demands including territorial annexation, no foreign troops to enforce a ceasefire, and potentially withdrawing U.S. troops in Eastern Europe.
If Trump makes these decisions, it will be clear whom he got the idea from: Vladimir Putin. In the book War, Bob Woodward reported that in early 2024 Trump asked an unnamed aide to leave so he could have a private call with the Russian leader. The aide told Woodward that the two men had as many as seven private calls since leaving office in 2021. While it's not known what they discussed, the Russian leader's fixation on resentments towards the West over the eastward expansion of NATO in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse coupled with his long-winded speaking style suggest that these were lectures. Since Putin only speaks Russian, these conversations would have been doubly long for Putin to speak, and the translation to come. (Their February 2025 phone call lasted around 90 minutes, according to the Kremlin.)
When Trump has taken policy decisions favorable to Ukraine, there may have been less than meets the eye. During the Oval Office blowup, Trump pointed out that he had sent Ukraine Javelin anti-tank missiles during his first term, a step Obama hadn't taken and which he thought Zelenskyy should be more "thankful" for. However, Alexander Vindman, a former National Security Council official who pushed for the Javelin policy change, wrote in his recent book The Folly of Realism that it was "likely" that Trump hadn't read the policy even though he signed off on it.
That stance would be consistent with the administration's move this past week to completely cut off Ukraine at the knees. Trump's halting of U.S. intelligence-sharing with Kyiv is endangering Ukrainian troops and hampering its forces in Russia's Kursk region, where it is trying to hold territory it has held since August. The U.S. has also halted military aid, although the effects won't be felt for a few months, according to Ukrainian officials. According to NBC News, Trump has told aides privately that signing the stalled minerals deal between the U.S. and Ukraine won't be enough to resume these things. He wants Ukraine to accept territorial concessions and for Zelenskyy to "make some movement" towards holding elections--a step in violation of the country's constitution so long as it is at war--and possibly even step down.
Again, these demands seem to come straight from the Kremlin. Putin has long demanded that Ukraine accept the annexation of four Ukrainian regions that Russia does not fully control. Moscow has also waged a long propaganda campaign discrediting Zelenskyy's legitimacy, with Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, falsely claiming this week that Ukraine's own laws prevent Zelenskyy from negotiating with Putin.
The paradox of this embrace is that it is unlikely to produce Trump's stated aim for the war to end quickly. Trump's threats of more sanctions and tariffs on Russia for not coming to the table are empty. The U.S. has sanctioned Russia from the beginning of the full-scale invasion and it hasn't changed its behavior, and trade with Russia is negligible. With the U.S. freeze, Putin believes that time is on his side, so he can hold out for even more concessions. The bigger Russia's goals become in Ukraine, the more it will become clear that Ukraine cannot accept them. EU countries--who see Ukraine as fighting the war that it could have to fight in the future--will get more involved with sending military aid and sharing intelligence.
In the Oval Office blowup, Trump accused Zelenskyy of "gambling with World War III"; however, it is Russia that invited nuclear-armed North Korea to fight against Ukraine, an incredible escalation. Trump may think that his efforts to end the war in Ukraine will get him the Nobel Peace Prize, an award which he has long obsessed over. However, his embrace of Putin, the first European leader to start an aggressive war since Hitler, seems likelier to lead to an escalating world war.
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