Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine very quickly. Now, the American president seems to be preparing to withdraw his hands from the conflict.
Trump had a two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Ukraine and its European allies waited in suspense to see if the American would put pressure on his Russian counterpart.
The US, Ukraine, and other European countries have been pushing for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire for months as an opening for peace talks. At the beginning of this month, the UK, France, Germany, and Poland gave Putin an ultimatum: agree or Russia will face new sanctions and Ukraine will receive more Western weapons. The US endorsed that, said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
After the conversation between Trump and Putin, it turned out that this was not the case. The American demand for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire has disappeared. Moreover, the US does not attach any consequences to the Russian rejection of the proposal.
The Trump administration is increasingly and more decisively brandishing the prospect of the US withdrawing as a mediator. The war, it sounds in Washington, is a European and not an American problem.
Pressure on Ukraine, Not on Russia
Since Trump took office at the beginning of this year, the US has put significant pressure on Ukraine. For example, all military and intelligence assistance to the country was temporarily frozen because Zelensky and his people were not being constructive enough. In recent weeks, Trump also seemed to be losing patience with Russia. He publicly wondered if Putin was “stringing him along.”
After his conversation with Putin, Trump informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the other Europeans that Russia and Ukraine would have to come to a solution to the war together. He told reporters on Monday evening: “I think something is going to happen. If not, I’ll just pull out and they’ll have to figure it out themselves. This was a European matter and should have remained a European matter.”
His vice president, JD Vance, was on the same track earlier in the day. “We are more than willing to walk away,” he said. “The US is not going to sit idly by. We want to see results.”
Despite his own threats of fresh American sanctions, Trump was not prepared to crack down harder on Russia last week. The European Union announced a new sanctions package on Tuesday, with more measures in preparation. The US is not participating.
Trump is Taking More and More distance
Trump said during the American election campaign that he would bring the war in Ukraine to an end within 24 hours. When that challenge proved too great, he adjusted that to the first hundred days of his term.
He prefers not to be confronted with that. Now that diplomatic progress has failed to materialize, Trump is trying to distance himself more and more from the conflict, which he describes as “Joe Biden’s war.”
“The war has been raging for three years. I’m just here, and then you ask: ‘Why is it taking so long?'” said a piqued Trump at the end of April. According to him, “everyone” knew that the claim that he would stop the fighting in Ukraine within 24 hours was meant “figuratively” and “jokingly.”
In reality, that promise was made by him more than fifty times on the campaign trail. Sometimes Trump emphasized that his words should be taken literally. “I’ll get that job done in 24 hours,” he said, for example, at a rally in July 2023. “Everyone then says: ‘Oh no, you can’t do that’. I absolutely can.”
New American Attitude is Beneficial for Russia
A withdrawal of the US as a mediator would be disastrous for Ukraine, especially if American arms support to the country is stopped. Kyiv’s European allies are not in a position to fill that gap. For example, they do not have their own replacement for the American Patriot air defense missiles that have been supplied to Ukraine.
In Moscow, the latest developments will be followed with satisfaction. While Russia is making steady progress on the battlefield in Ukraine and can sustain that fight longer than its smaller neighbor, it is being given room by Trump to slow down and delay. If the US withdraws completely, that is a dream scenario for Putin: Ukraine doomed to lose the war and NATO played apart.
For Trump, normalizing the American relationship with Russia currently seems to be a higher priority than ending the war. A significant part of his conversation with Putin on Monday was about the economic opportunities that, according to the Russian president, his country can offer the Americans.
“Russia wants to trade on a large scale with the US when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree with that,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “There is a great opportunity for Russia to create huge amounts of jobs and wealth. [Russia] has endless potential.”