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U.S. President Donald Trump has maintained in recent weeks a studied silence about Russia’s actions, but he broke the silence on Sunday. His Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymir Zelenskiy, had implored him to speak out following Russia’s weekend offensive, which repeatedly struck Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. “The U.S.’s silence only serves to encourage Putin,” said the Ukrainian leader. Finally, late in the afternoon and on his way back to the White House from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump was critical of the Russian president in questions from reporters: “I’m not happy with what Putin is doing. He’s killing a lot of people. I don’t know what the hell happened to him.”
“I’ve known him a long time. Always gotten along with him. But he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all. We’re in the middle of talking, and he’s shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities,” he went on. Asked whether he might consider new sanctions, the reply was “absolutely.”
In a message on his social network Truth Social, the president added that “I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!”
“I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!” he added. The president also had words of rebuke for the Ukrainian leader, saying that “President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop.”
Before his return to the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump used to boast that it would take him just 24 hours to reach a peace agreement between the leaders of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and Russia, Vladimir Putin. In reality, it only took him two hours of phone conversation with the Kremlin leader last week to give the latter everything he wanted and wash his hands of whatever comes next. The peace talks, he claimed, are now in the hands of Kyiv and Moscow directly, without U.S. pressure. And if the Vatican or the Europeans want to pick up the slack, that’s their problem.
The Kremlin downplayed the American leader’s words against Putin. “We are very grateful to the Americans and President Trump personally for their support in pushing forward the negotiations. Of course, this is a crucial moment and it is related to the mental burden that affects absolutely everyone with these emotional reactions,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday. “President Putin takes the decisions that are necessary to ensure the security of our country.”According to the Kremlin, these attacks are Russia’s response to those carried out by Ukraine against military facilities on its territory.
Prisoner swap
On Sunday, the final phase of the agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners per side, agreed upon by Ukraine and Russia in their negotiations 10 days ago in Istanbul, was completed. After that, the peace talks’ timeline has been blank. There are no further rounds planned, nor any deadlines for anything. The only commitment resulting from the Turkish negotiations, to continue talking—perhaps at the Holy See, according to Trump—does not appear to have any real momentum behind it.
That the prisoner exchange concluded just hours after what Kyiv has described as the largest Russian airstrike since the start of the war three years ago, resulting in the deaths of at least 13 people, makes it clear, if there was any doubt, that Moscow has no desire to make concessions. Certainly not to declare a ceasefire. And last week’s call made it clear to Putin that he will not heed any U.S. pressure to stop.
Sunday’s attack, involving more than 300 drones and 70 missiles, culminated a growing series of airstrikes against territory in the occupied country. A report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) this week highlighted that Russia plans to continue the fighting in Ukraine throughout this year. Analysts, and the Ukrainian government, assume that Moscow will attempt to launch a new offensive in the coming months to seize more territory.
The Kremlin resident is convinced that time is on his side. That his forces are winning, even if their advances are measured in centimeters and hundreds of daily casualties. And he demands that what he defines as “the root causes of the war” be addressed: for him, who considers Ukraine a fabricated state that must be part of Russia, this is tantamount to deposing Zelenskiy and establishing a Moscow-puppet government in Kyiv.
“Putin isn’t interested in a ceasefire or an agreement, but rather in victory, understood as the subjugation of Ukraine,” notes Brian Taylor, professor of political science at Syracuse University. This position was reinforced by the long phone call with Trump last week, a conversation that embodied the worst nightmares in European diplomatic circles.
No pressure on Putin
The U.S. president, as he himself explained after that conversation in a message on his social network, Truth, and in a subsequent call with European leaders and Zelenskiy himself, announced that from now on, peace negotiations will be led by Ukrainians and Russians, “because they know things that others don’t.” He stopped mentioning the threats of joint sanctions with European countries against Moscow, the punishment he had promised just two weeks earlier if Russia didn’t make a serious effort to negotiate and reach a reasonable agreement with Ukraine. And he revived the idea of doing big business with the theoretically adversary country. In short, he eased pressure on the Kremlin in exchange for nothing.
“The Russian president has faced zero consequences for stalling Trump over the past four months, and from what Trump has said about the conversation, that hasn’t changed one bit,” Taylor notes. For Putin, the conversation was all positive. U.S. pressure has disappeared, at least for the time being, and Washington’s sanctions remain in limbo.
This situation has succeeded in deepening the latent division within NATO: while the Republican administration stands back, the Europeans continue to push ahead with their plan to punish Moscow. It’s icing on the cake for the Kremlin. “In that call, Putin got exactly what he wanted. A one-on-one conversation with Trump, without Zelenskiy’s impertinent presence, without the impertinence of the Europeans,” emphasizes John Bolton, a former White House National Security Advisor during Trump’s first term.
After his phone call with Putin, Trump asserted that he is not bored with his mediating role. The White House also insists that its position has not changed. It clarifies that Kyiv continues to receive U.S. weapons and is supplied with spare parts and ammunition, even though no new shipments of equipment have been approved. His soft touch with the Russian president, according to the presidential office, is nothing more than an attempt to convince a man who does not want to sit down and negotiate.
U.S. foreign policy strongman Marco Rubio, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, defended the White House strategy on Tuesday at a Senate hearing. He confirmed that there would be no sanctions for the time being. “The president believes that right now, if you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking. And there is value in us being able to talk to them and to drive them to get to the table,” he declared.
According to him, Washington is “trying to end a costly war that neither side can win.” Russia wants what it neither has nor has the right to right now, and Ukraine wants what it cannot recover militarily. That’s the crux of the problem, he added.
But within Washington’s diplomatic circles, there is disagreement. The current ambassador to Kyiv, Bridget Brink, resigned last month in disagreement with the White House’s accommodating policy toward Putin. The career diplomat believes it is necessary to take the opposite approach: exert pressure on the Russian president to make it clear that remaining in Ukraine will cost him too much. “Putin is stalling. That’s why it’s truly important to put more pressure on Russia, together with our partners and allies and the European Union,” she said Thursday in a statement to CNN.
For now, Europe is closely watching the bill introduced by Senators Lindsay Graham, a Republican, and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, in the Senate, with the support of 81 of the 100 legislators. The measure provides that, if Moscow insists on passing the buck, primary and secondary sanctions will be imposed, including 500% tariffs against countries, such as India or China, that purchase Russian oil or other products. The proposal cannot force Trump to implement it, but it can give him good arguments—and an excuse for Putin—to do so.
With no public deadline on the horizon for relaunching peace talks, all eyes now turn to the G-7 summit scheduled for mid-June in Kananaskis, Canada, where Trump and his allies will have to address the next steps.
Just a week later, they will meet again for a key meeting: the NATO summit in The Hague. There, the U.S. president and his allies will discuss the new European military spending targets (3.5% of GDP plus 1.5% investment in potential dual-use infrastructure, to reach the 5% the Republican demands). They will also have to clarify to what extent each side is willing to support Ukraine and contain Russia to prevent further attacks by Moscow on European soil.
With additional reporting by Javier G. Cuesta.
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