Experts say President Vladimir Putin has persuaded President Trump and U.S. negotiators of a deal despite Moscow raining missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities.
Ukrainian Olympic athlete disqualified over helmet controversy
Ukrainian Olympic athlete Vladislav Heraskevich was disqualified for wearing a helmet depicting a Ukrainian athlete killed in the war with Russia.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has taken extraordinary actions in confronting authoritarians in places such as Venezuela, where U.S. forces have detained leader Nicolas Maduro, and Iran, where he bombed a nuclear facility in June and is now threatening new attacks.
However, there are some powerful people that President Trump has consistently refused to accuse. That is Russian President Vladimir Putin. The former reality TV star has long admired Putin’s intelligence and iron grip.
The Russian leader has persuaded U.S. negotiators, including President Trump and special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, to strike a deal to end the long war, even as Moscow rains missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities and cuts off heat, water and power to thousands.
The war, which President Trump repeatedly vowed could end in a day, is now in its fourth year, but despite the Feb. 24 anniversary of the Russian invasion and the president’s State of the Union address, a peace deal has yet to be reached.
Is the president being played?
“Putin is an incredibly talented KGB employee. That’s what he is,” said Uriel Epshteyn, CEO of the Renew Democracy Initiative, a humanitarian organization in Ukraine. “He’s incredibly effective at manipulating people and getting them to do what he wants.”
Ukraine skeptics and defenders alike argue that only President Trump can force Putin into a deal. But President Trump has often taken a tougher stance toward Ukraine than Russia, the war’s clear aggressor, demanding that Kiev give up territory that Russia was unable to conquer by force in exchange for a U.S.-brokered peace.
President Trump told reporters on February 13 that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy “must take action, or we will miss a golden opportunity.” “Ukraine had better come to the table as soon as possible,” he repeated a few days later.
Putin “buys time” with talks
Ukrainian supporters, members of Congress and former U.S. officials argue that Putin is buying time while the military gradually builds up its military presence in eastern Ukraine. US-mediated talks in Geneva on February 18 lasted just two hours.
“This may be the problem. President Trump believes that a solution is on the way, and Russia is using another round of negotiations as a way to buy time and as a way to avoid a final decision from the United States in order to further strengthen the Ukraine issue,” Radosław Fogiel, vice chairman of the Polish parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told USA TODAY.
In an effort to keep negotiations going, President Trump used his influence to block U.S. financial sanctions against Russia, which have broad support from Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
He drastically reduced U.S. aid to Ukraine and, after a dramatic spat with Zelensky, at one point cut off Kiev’s access to intelligence and halted the flow of free American arms. President Trump has stated multiple times that he believes Ukraine is responsible for Russia’s aggression.
“President Trump’s position was essentially to bully Ukraine into realizing that it would not be able to achieve its objectives and that it would have to make concessions, and then turn around and try to achieve peace,” said Phil Gordon, a former national security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris. “That’s very different from the massive aid we were giving out.”
That approach was not successful. President Trump returned empty-handed from a glamorous summit with President Putin in Alaska last year. But the administration and Trump’s close allies insist it could still work.
Andrew Peek, a former staffer on the Trump administration’s National Security Council who now works at the Atlantic Council, pointed out that in October last year, President Trump imposed sanctions on Russia’s largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.
“It’s a big deal,” Peek told USA TODAY. “So the pressure is not just on Ukraine. I think the president has set up this dynamic where basically both countries are competing with each other to move toward peace.”
Ivanna Klympush, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, said sanctions on oil companies explain why Russia has “started to pretend that it is taking part in negotiations”.
“And it actually shows that Russia is vulnerable to pressure and is responding to pressure rather than being complacent and continuing dialogue after a major attack on Ukraine,” she said.
According to senior U.S. officials, Russia is open to making some limited concessions, such as allowing Ukraine to join the European Union.
But Russia’s demands for the entire eastern Donbas region, including areas it does not currently control, are not a starting point for Ukraine, which is willing to accept an agreement that freezes the conflict along its current lines. Russian forces occupy almost 20% of Ukraine’s territory.
“Americans often return to the topic of concessions,” Zelenskiy said in a Feb. 14 speech at the Munich Security Conference. “Too often these concessions are discussed only in the context of Ukraine, not Russia.”
Negotiators met in Geneva a few days later for a third round of negotiations led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Witkoff.
White House press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement that Trump has been successful in bringing the two sides together in three meetings and that his approach “continues to produce meaningful progress.”
“Both sides updated their respective leaders and agreed to continue working towards an agreement. None of these discussions took place under the incompetence of Joe Biden, whose weakness led to this brutal war. President Trump and his team are working hard to stop the killing,” Kerry said.
Zelenskiy said earlier this month that President Trump had set a June deadline for reaching a deal. He also said Russia has presented the United States with a $12 trillion economic proposal.
The White House ruled out a summer deadline. He did not address economic proposals in response to questions from USA TODAY. He also claimed that President Trump has expressed dissatisfaction with President Putin in the past and has put pressure on both leaders on various points.
Mark Montgomery, a retired Navy admiral who worked for the late Republican Sen. John McCain, says the idea that the United States could reap a $12 trillion windfall from a country that generates an estimated $2.2 trillion a year is “nonsense.”
Still, Trump may find it attractive, he said.
“President Trump doesn’t admire democracy. He admires power. He admires democracy when democracy is strong,” Montgomery said. “He’s attracted to authoritarian leaders like Putin and Xi, and he thinks he can do business with them,” he said, referring to the Chinese president.
Fogiel, the Polish politician, said the Russians were probably hoping they could squeeze something out of Trump with such a lucrative offer. “I do not believe this to be the case,” he added.
Fogiel said Trump appears to be motivated by other interests in Ukraine.
“I believe he wants to make ending the Ukraine war part of his legacy, whether it’s the Nobel Peace Prize or genuine care for the dying people on the ground,” he said.
President Trump, while loudly complaining about not winning the Nobel Prize, said he just wanted the killings to stop.
Ukraine and midterm elections
Zelenskiy suggested that President Trump has another goal: to score a political victory before the midterm elections in November. But the White House dismissed this, with Trump’s former national security adviser Peake pointing out that Trump has been talking about ending the war since 2024.
“He’s not like a political operative on this issue. It’s just that he doesn’t really like war, he doesn’t like that everything keeps exploding. He doesn’t like the attitude about war by the Europeans, by the Russians, by the Ukrainians,” Peek said. “He always is.”
Russia has gained little territory since its 2022 invasion. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Bloomberg News that Putin’s military is losing as many as 8,000 soldiers every week.
Experts say Ukraine can still hold out with the help of European countries, which are buying weapons from the United States on Kiev’s behalf.
“There are no signs that President Zelenskiy is going to give in or that Ukraine is going to collapse,” said Gordon, an official in the Obama and Biden administrations. “Unfortunately, that means the war will probably continue for some time.”
Mr. Montgomery, who was recently training Ukrainian troops in Kiev, said it was highly unlikely that the negotiations would be successful because President Trump is leaning primarily toward Mr. Zelensky.
“The failure of the United States to leverage pressure on Russia has made Russia less restrained in negotiations. Russia has no leverage, so they are not making any concessions,” he said. “And I think we’re at the point where Ukraine is not going to make any more concessions at the table, and it’s not going to make any more concessions on the battlefield. So we’re heading into another year of war.”
Ukrainian politician Klympush said it was a “false belief” that Russia could be tricked into peace.
While President Trump’s talks, and talks about talks, continue, Ukrainians are cringing.
While many Ukrainians are shivering in the dark, “we know it’s still better than the Russian concentration camps,” Klympush said. “That’s what Russia can offer in the occupied territories.”
Recalling mass graves and torture chambers discovered in areas liberated from Russian forces and the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainians, he said many in the country saw what they saw as a systematic effort to erase Ukraine’s culture, history and language.
“We know what we’re fighting for,” Klimpusch said.
