Trump’s ongoing kowtow to Putin ensures failure of ‘peace’ talks on war in Ukraine

Can we please stop pretending President Donald Trump wants a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia?

The president of the world’s most powerful nation is permitting Vladimir Putin to play him for a fool, as the whole world (most notably China) watches in amazement. Contrary to his constant braggadocio, Trump’s pursuit of this deal demonstrates weakness, not strength.

No matter how often Putin demeans him — like bluntly refusing Trump’s plan for a 30-day total ceasefire — the president refuses to pressure Moscow. Instead, he keeps making concessions to Moscow while getting nothing in return, all while putting the squeeze on Ukraine to capitulate to the Kremlin’s demands.

Trump has made all too clear to Putin that he is eager to wipe the Ukraine issue off his agenda as quickly as possible so he can lift sanctions on Russia and do “big business” with Moscow. (Trump Tower in Moscow, maybe?) So why should Putin concede?

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanded that Ukraine accept a plan that could have been written by the Kremlin.

The deal would “freeze” (not end) the war roughly along current lines of Russian conquest, leaving Moscow in control of close to 20 per cent of the country.

But, in an egregious nod to Putin, it would reportedly require Ukraine to recognize Russia’s conquest of Crimea up front — and to permanently abandon hope of joining NATO. Ukraine would get no U.S. security guarantees in return.

Such a frozen conflict would enable Russia to regroup and attack again later. That’s what they did after their gains from their 2014 invasion were frozen for eight years.

Yet when Zelensky rightly rejected such a lopsided plan Rubio withdrew from scheduled talks on Wednesday in London with his Ukrainian and European counterparts — and threatened the U.S. would soon “walk away from this process.” Trump, for his part, vilified the Ukrainian president on Truth Social (although he never critiques Putin’s criminal missile attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.)

Such language gives Putin a pass just as the evidence is mounting that concerted U.S. pressure on Russia could force the Kremlin leader to bow.

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The evidence was laid out in early April during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee by Gen. Christopher Cavoli, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, whose responsibilities give him exceptional knowledge of the ground situation in Ukraine. Cavoli described a Russian economy that is suffering from high interest rates, high inflation, and dependence on war production to the exclusion of everything else.

Russian casualties are extraordinarily high, and Moscow’s capacity to pay high bonuses to recruits, the wounded, and families of the dead is under severe strain. Meantime, Ukrainians have solidified their defenses, and “appear to have solved some of their manpower problems that were so acute last summer.” (In fact, Ukrainian sources tell me anecdotally how recruitment has surged as a result of rising anger at Trump’s pro-Putin positions and disrespect for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.)

As retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, another close observer of Ukraine, writes in the Bulwark, “Cavoli’s testimony punctured the false narrative being spread by President Trump and members of his national security team — that Russia is winning, Ukraine is doomed and future U.S. support would be wasted.”

Indeed, the reverse is true right now. Trump has halted any new Ukraine aid, and a willing Europe is nowhere near able to fill the gap. But now is the moment when more U.S. aid could help force Putin to reconsider his assessment that Trump will give him a free pass to continue the war.

According to a study this month by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), one of the closest U.S. think tank observers of the Ukrainian battleground, America “can use the enormous challenges Russia will face in 2025 as leverage to secure critical concessions in ongoing negotiations to end the war by continuing and even expanding military support to Ukraine.”

Putin is “prioritizing breaking Western and particularly U.S. support to Ukraine in 2025,” said the ISW. This would permit the Russian dictator to survive the enormous economic and manpower problems he now confronts. Otherwise, he will be forced to make hard choices by 2026.

If the White House used this critical moment to squeeze Russia — say, by putting secondary sanctions on illegal delivery of Russian oil to third countries, something Trump has threatened but never adopted — “the United States can achieve a strong negotiating position” and “can likely coerce Russia into making the concessions necessary to secure a peace acceptable to the United States, Ukraine, and Europe.” This tough approach would also require continued U.S. military aid.

Instead, Trump and his aides are doing the exact opposite. Trump’s extraordinarily naive peace negotiator, fellow real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, has clearly become enamored of Putin in his three visits to Moscow (he has never visited Kyiv even once to meet with Zelensky).

Witkoff clearly knows little to nothing about Ukraine’s history — even since Russia’s first invasion in 2014 — and repeats Kremlin talking points nearly verbatim. For example, Putin has apparently convinced him that Russian-speaking Ukrainians want to be part of Russia, and so voted in referendums Moscow forced on occupied Ukrainian regions.

Witkoff appears ignorant of the fact that most Ukrainians spoke Russian before 2014 because of Russia’s control of education prior to Ukrainian independence in 1991. But that doesn’t mean they want to be ruled by the Kremlin, which held the referendums at gunpoint, and jails and tortures any residents of occupied territories who speak Ukrainian. Moreover, every region occupied by Russia voted for independence from Moscow in 1991.

The result is a lopsided plan that gives Russia nearly all of its demands and leaves the way open for it to destroy Ukraine economically, politically - and, once it regroups - via renewed war.

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Witkoff’s constant kowtow to the Kremlin is not diplomacy. The White House is openly brandishing a Kremlin club against Ukraine.

Moreover, in his eagerness for warm relations and big deals with Putin, Trump is rescuing the dictator from the cost of his strategic errors in invading Ukraine.

Indeed, Trump has refused pleas from Ukraine, and the Europeans, to reinforce any European military support with guarantees of U.S. backup if Putin breaks a future ceasefire. This is a basic requirement for peace, since Putin has broken every agreement Moscow has signed with Ukraine since its independence.

Without such backup, no ceasefire or deal would be worth the paper it was printed on, and Russia’s war on Ukraine will continue. Trump’s failure on Ukraine will haunt him in efforts at diplomacy or warfare for the rest of his term.

Yet, the president cavalierly insists no further U.S. aid for Ukraine is needed because he trusts Putin. In truth, his words and actions demonstrate, he doesn’t give a fig about Ukraine. But he is too narcissistic to grasp that Putin is using him (in Vladimir Lenin’s words) as a “useful idiot.”

Peace through strength or continued war due to Trump’s weakness. We will have an answer soon.

Editor’s note: This column has been updated with information about the U.S. peace proposal that was presented to Ukraine officials Wednesday.