Moscow reacted with delight when President Trump clashed with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, at their Oval Office meeting last month. Trump followed up with a warning on his Truth Social platform that “Zelensky disrespected the United States … [and] can come back when he is ready for Peace.”
Two days later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the new U.S. administration “is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely coincides with our vision.”
Vladimir Putin could not have been happier with the meeting’s tumultuous outcome. The administration seemingly upended Washington’s decades-long support of Kyiv, which it had increased and accelerated after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Moreover, Putin also appeared to have achieved his long-held objective of splitting America from its European allies — who, unlike Trump, were not prepared to jettison their support for the beleaguered Ukrainians.
But Putin and his underlings may have started celebrating too soon.
Shortly after the Oval Office confrontation, Trump ordered a cutoff of all military and intelligence aid to Kyiv. Russia took advantage of the situation by launching a massive attack on Ukrainian oil and gas targets that left 20 civilians dead and scores more wounded. Though Trump stated that he could “understand” why Putin would take advantage of the American-Ukrainian rift, he also threatened to impose sanctions against Moscow. That should have been an indication that the American president was not really siding with Russia, at least to the extent that Moscow thought he would.
Russia surely did not anticipate the events that followed the aid cutoff. Zelensky opted to eat humble pie and agree to negotiations with Russia under Trump’s leadership. The result of preliminary talks between senior American and Ukrainian officials, the former led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the latter by Andriy Yermak, head of Zelensky’s presidential office, were not music to Putin’s ears.
Instead of further friction between the two countries, there emerged a joint statement whose second paragraph averred that “representatives of both nations praised the bravery of the Ukrainian people in defense of their nation” in effect a rejection of Putin’s assertion that Ukraine is not a real country. Moreover, after showering Trump with fulsome praise, the statement went on to outline Kyiv’s “readiness to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation.”
As if this were not enough to rattle Putin, the statement added that “the United States will communicate to Russia reciprocity is the key to achieving peace.” When Rubio then stated that “the ball is in Russia’s court,” he effectively boxed Moscow into a corner that the Russian dictator could not possibly have anticipated after the White House standoff 12 days earlier.
Washington also committed to “immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine.” Finally, the agreement put the proposed deal to develop Ukraine’s mineral resources back on the table, “to guarantee Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security.”
The bewildering change of circumstances should not have come as a surprise to Putin, or to the many observers who had despaired at Trump’s seeming tolerance of Russian aggression. It is widely recognized that Trump is fundamentally transactional, and that he can quickly alter any policy if it no longer meets his immediate or longer-term needs.
Once Zelensky made the difficult decision to kowtow to Trump, and his even more agonizing willingness to accept a ceasefire that leaves Russian forces in possession of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, Trump had achieved his near-term objective of forcing Ukraine to the negotiating table.
His next step is to get Russia to do the same.
Putin has little incentive to negotiate with Kyiv while his forces are gaining ground, albeit slowly, both in eastern Ukraine and in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched its counteroffensive last summer. Indeed, only a day after the U.S. and Ukraine issued their joint communique, Russian (and North Korean) forces retook the strategic town of Sudzha. Yet Putin was now being asked to stop any further Russian advances.
Russia initially rejected the ceasefire proposal, though that may only have been a delaying tactic. Indeed, Putin then did a quick turnaround and accepted the ceasefire on Thursday, but spoke of “nuances” that had to be worked out.
Putin may think he can outsmart Trump by delaying his readiness to accept a ceasefire until his forces have captured far more Ukrainian territory. But in doing so, he runs the risk of angering the American president, who not only is impatient, but also does not take kindly to attempts to outsmart him.
Should Trump perceive that Putin is trying to play him, he could decide to accelerate military support for Kyiv, which could include many of the American weapons and munitions that the Biden administration refused to transfer to Ukraine. Trump also could lift the Biden veto of a variety of European arms transfers that have American components. In doing the latter, Washington would even go at least some distance toward closing the breach with its European allies that Putin and his predecessors fought so had to create.
If Putin is as clever as many make him out to be, he will immediately accept the American-Ukrainian offer to negotiate. Otherwise, he could well discover, much to his regret, that just as he thinks he holds more cards than Ukraine, Washington holds more cards than he does.
Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.
