CNN
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Due to a fleeting moment, the Ukrainian conflict may have circled.
In the last 48 hours, US President Donald Trump has probably made his most powerful and direct words about Ukrainian armament. And in the same period, the Kremlin gave this White House a sign of their void that they were not interested in a realistic and negotiated settlement to the war.
Let’s start with Trump’s comments on Ukrainian armament. This opposes the Russian attacks, for decades, a return to the basic bedrock of US foreign policy. “I’m going to send you a little more weapons,” the president said on Monday in Ukraine. “We have to do it. They have to be able to protect themselves. They’re being hit very hard.”
Behind him, his defense secretary nodded despite this inconsistency in the administration’s announcement several days ago that military cargo had been suspended. What did Trump actually mean? He lacked details.
A Pentagon spokesman later said: “At President Trump’s direction, the Pentagon will send additional defensive weapons to Ukraine, allowing Ukrainians to protect themselves while they strive to ensure lasting peace and stop the killings.”
The face came on Friday a few days after Volodymie Zelensky’s call with Trump. The Ukrainian leader said the two men spoke about joint weapons production and air defense.
Zelensky urgently needs more Patriot Interceptor missiles. This is the only way to defeat Russian ballistic missiles, and the only way the US can approve trade. It’s enough that Zelensky began to declare Trump’s call on Saturday.
Failing to provide Trump’s details could be a strategic or by-product of his occasional silly da. But he might sound a little more like his predecessor, Joe Biden, in terms of arming Ukraine, but here there is one harsh difference. Biden has publicly announced in detail all the abilities he has given Kiev, perhaps as he hopes that transparency will avoid a sudden, unexpected escalation with Moscow.
Instead, Biden ended with an excruciating public debate with Kiev about the shipment of all the new systems and weapons. The open ladders of the plains of American escalation were stripped naked by the Kremlin. Trump is probably trying to avoid it by saying it less.
But after only six months in office, Trump has always returned himself after Biden has always tried almost everything else. He then criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, dropped out with Zelensky, spurring him before eventually supporting Europe. But the timing of his latest conversion, no matter how permanent, reveals the despair of this moment in conflict.
The attack on Kiev by recording the latest Russian drones exposed a perhaps important shortcoming in the capital’s air defense. They would have been exacerbated without supplies at a time when Ukraine reported 160,000 Russian troops gathering north and east of the frontline. The coming months will be unpredictable and important to Kiev, even if US military support is renewed.
Trump’s reversal could have stopped the panic edge towards the risk of collapse. Why the shift?
Trump always tried to play well with Putin. Patient diplomacy, kind words, and a brief pause in military aid last week — the Kremlin demand for a deal — did nothing to change Putin’s position. The Kremlin does not want peace. And Trump slowly learned, rejecting the predicament of recent history and refusing Russia to be his opponent.
The end of the US’s longest war in Afghanistan led to a scene where Biden quickly retreated in the wake of a rushed deal signed by the Taliban and Trump, plaguing Trump’s predecessors and continuing to be the powerful stick that the Republicans beat the Democrats. Repeated repetitions of similar American allies in Ukraine or Eastern Europe would result in indelible staining of Republican or MAGA records. It’s not imminent. But that species is probably in the success of Putin’s planned attack.
Meanwhile, after fiddled with the idea of diplomacy for six months, the Kremlin has returned from where it also began. He is willing to accept peace only if he surrenders under another name. That recent goal has been achieved. It praised the White House’s belief that it could put an end to the war, and spent plenty of time in talks that Russian summer attacks are now properly people and the ground beneath these troops are giving human rights with all their might.
Just like on recent Monday, Putin’s top diplomats were repeating Russia’s biggest string of demands. Sergei Lavrov told the Hungarian newspaper that the “root cause” of the war must be eliminated, giving him a long list of impossible things, including “condemnation and de-destruction of Ukraine, lifting sanctions against Russia, withdrawing all lawsuits against Russia, and reclaiming Western resources based in the West.”
He added to the requirement that Ukraine pledges to never join NATO and that Moscow will be recognized as Russians, including parts of Zaporisia and Herson, whom he has not yet seized. When I first engaged in diplomacy in Istanbul, it was a disrupted response to Russia’s demands.
Putin’s rationale for rejecting true diplomacy is simple. He sold the war as an existential clash between Russia and its traditional values, and a liberal, expandist and offensive NATO. His story argues that it is a binary moment in Russian history. To entertain a deceptive ceasefire in American terminology, it will contradict the urgency of that false narrative and risk damaging the revealing morale of his army, where his commanders often flee in brutal, frontal attacks.
Putin can soften Trump with his desire for peace. However, he cannot slide the facade where his homeland is being attacked. His retreat to type was shorter and easier than Trump’s. However, the Kremlin is always looking at the enemy where it is needed, because of the war of choice to continue to end the lives of so many Russian men early.
And for a while, President Putin and Trump realized that Russia and the United States had returned to where they were in 2022. Diplomacy seems pointless. Washington must either help defend Ukraine or risk global embarrassment. This is the end of that military hegemony. And Ukraine is still in the middle, seeing the forces on both sides swinging and spinning, yet still holding onto them.
