Call it a valiant, optimistic, perhaps even a calamitous misreading.
US President Donald Trump’s belief he could somehow, through force of personality, convince his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that he wanted a peace deal was, at best, overly generous to himself and the Kremlin head.
It was fed by the strategic hot take that Moscow is an ally-in-waiting for the United States against China, rather than – increasingly – an energy-producing vassal to Beijing.
And while this misinterpretation of the situation has cost Ukraine dearly – in terms of the public shakiness of its American support, and by providing a window in which Russia’s forces could coldly plough forward on the front lines – valuable and obvious lessons have been learned, again, by Washington.
It’s left both sides in this now global and pivotal conflict in starker relief than they have been before.
The relentless aerial pummelling of Kyiv is, as several European leaders have said, designed to echo the practical outcome of Russia’s stalled diplomacy: that Moscow just does not want peace.
Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers building, which houses the prime minister’s office as well as some government ministries, was hit Sunday for the first time since the war began and – whether this is by design or from the falling debris of intercepted drones – it comes after another onslaught hit European Union and British Council offices.
Record attack drone launches are designed to overwhelm Kyiv’s defenses, and the deaths of children in the city (another infant was killed in an apartment building alongside her mother Sunday) are the one thing Trump seems to feel acutely – bar being complimented or shunned by Putin.
Russia’s president is no longer trying to mollify Trump, however, and the US presidential envoy Keith Kellogg correctly deemed these assaults as an “escalation” on Sunday.
The timing is no coincidence. Putin emerged from Beijing’s bonhomie last week – discussing immortality with his main bankroller, President Xi Jinping, and sharing his limo with wavering US ally, Indian leader Narendra Modi – aware that China wanted to parade its own bloc, unbowed.
The practical application of this new fervor to support Russia is yet unknown, but it will have simply increased the sense in Moscow they have a lot more road to travel down. They may get money, conventional military arms, souped-up hydrocarbon purchases, or just another 10,000 North Korean special forces. But Putin knows he is not alone now, and won’t be if sanctions cause his country’s economy to falter – the last remaining hope, bar internal political dissent, in the West for Russian defeat.
Meanwhile, Putin is putting to powerful use the time he has already won. Ukrainian officials fear Moscow’s troops are amassing yet again to make a final assault on Pokrovsk, in the east, and might see progress near Kupiansk, farther north.
We’ve been here before, where battlefield movements prove unpredictable, erratic, even glacial. But the tenacity of Kyiv’s forces in holding back the Russian summer offensive has been a remarkable outlier, and wider Russian progress remains a fierce possibility in the weeks ahead.
Given this renewed sense of purpose and momentum among Moscow’s allies, Trump finds the ball is rolling back toward him. Europe has done much of its part, pledging higher spending, ongoing commitment, and even ground troops in Ukraine if there is a peace.
Trump threatened “phase two” of sanctions on Russia on Sunday – presumably a widening of the tariffs against India and their introduction in China. But the 50% tariffs against New Delhi have had little effect so far – bar dragging Modi to Beijing and into Putin’s limo – and apparently increasing India’s purchases of Russian oil by 15% to 50% in the coming months, according to sources describing Indian oil markets to CNN.
US legislators have an oven-ready bill proposing sanctions against Russian banks, and those who work with them, together with up to 500% tariffs against countries that purchase Russian oil.
So there is more that Trump can do. It would put him, surreally, in a space where his non-military measures against Moscow exceed those of his predecessor Joe Biden.
Trump is permitting Europe to pay for Ukraine to buy weapons – such as longer-range missiles – that Biden once balked at. Any new sanctions might hit Moscow’s increasingly fragile economy at a moment of weakness. But Russia has had plenty of heads-up about what sanctions might be coming, and significant support from allies to evade them. It has proved resilient over the past years in practical terms, and in its domestic tolerance.
Trump’s Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said future moves could put the Russian economy “in full collapse, and that will bring President Putin to the table.”
It is not a forlorn hope, but one that underestimates the existential nature of this war for Russia’s leader. Economic pressure will make him uncomfortable, and might make him seek an earlier ceasefire than he would like.
But it will not by itself deter him from his main goal: a victory broad enough it justifies the likely hundreds of thousands of Russian war dead, and the vast damage this war has wrought upon Russia itself. Once the war is done, Putin must sell his victory convincingly to his own elite, or risk finding himself defenestrated. Nothing is infinite (not even with the organ transplants he discussed with Xi).
The prognosis for the months ahead is gloomy. Putin could see some of the pressure his forces have applied in Ukraine’s east translate into territorial gains of strategic import. Trump may struggle to formulate an economic response that is damaging enough to Moscow to change its mind, but also soft enough to keep the channels of diplomacy open.
This is an impossible task – partly due to Trump’s own muddled thinking – but most importantly, because Putin does not want peace.
The past eight months have been wasted by the US president in terms of planning for Ukraine’s survival and European security, with needless cozying up to Moscow and undermining of a strategic transatlantic alliance that Washington will still need in the decades to come. But they have provided an invaluable lesson – if one needed to be learned – of who is on which side. Not even Trump can have any illusions now.