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By Mel Gurtov

One thing seems clear to me about these talks: Vladimir Putin is in an enviable position to get what he wants — maybe not all of what he wants, but most of it. In the two-hour conversation between Putin and Trump, Putin agreed only to a pause on attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — a promise he violated one hour later. He would not agree to a 30-day cease-fire, which to my mind means the Trump plan has already failed.

As I believe Putin sees it, the Ukraine army is on the run and Donald Trump wants out. Trump has already made concessions even before his telephone conversation with Putin — agreeing to keep Volodymyr Zelensky on the outside looking in, agreeing that Ukraine cannot become a member of NATO, and agreeing that Ukraine will have to make territorial concessions. Trump’s team in talks with the Russians is amateurish. People like Steve Witkoff can’t praise Putin enough, believing his every word and assuring one and all that the Russian leader wants peace.

U.S. intelligence is reported to have concluded that Putin aims to have a dominant position vis-à-vis Ukraine once an agreement is reached. He reportedly wants international recognition of Russian-occupied territory and no NATO troops deployed to Ukraine for peacekeeping. Most far-reaching is his demand during his conversation with Trump: termination of all aid to Ukraine, both military and intelligence. Putin, on the other hand, has not been asked to give up anything.

To the contrary, Putin’s agenda is probably very much larger than the above, as Laurie Bristow points out in a recent issue of Foreign Policy. When he says that any agreement must address the “underlying causes” of the war, he means the very existence of Ukraine, which Putin regards as an “anti-Russian project” of the West. He also means that Russia’s security needs go beyond keeping Ukraine out of NATO. Bristow believes it means that “Russia has a veto over other countries’ security arrangements.” And Putin wants to “cut the United States down to size” by decoupling it from Europe.

Does Trump have any leverage over all these Putin demands? Sanctions? Sanctions on Russia seem highly unlikely to be used, first, because Trump values Putin’s friendship more than he values Europe’s, and second, because sanctions on Russia would have little impact on its economy. Trump’s threats to use sanctions on Russia to get a deal are, in a word, empty.

Peace Talks with a Limited Future

Beyond the U.S.-Russia negotiations lie two other major issues that are likely to doom them even if Trump and Putin can reach agreement: Ukraine’s likely adverse reaction to a deal, and problems implementing a cease-fire.

President Zelensky has approved the limited cease-fire.
But, quite reasonably, he wants Ukraine to approve every other agreement the U.S. and Russia reach. He certainly is not going to endorse Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian land; nor will he agree to limits on what the Europeans might provide by way of security assistance.
And what about Ukraine’s 20,000 stolen children, and Putin’s war crimes? Zelensky will have to steel himself for the predicted Trump pressure tactics to force his acquiescence. He is very likely to say that no one has the right to sacrifice another country’s sovereignty.

Should a permanent cease-fire be arranged, myriad problems will need attention. Those include international supervision of the cease-fire, agreement on how to handle violations, the locations of a cease-fire along the Russian-Ukraine border, permissible troop and weapon movements, and post-cease-fire arrangements for next steps. Agreement on these matters will be difficult to reach.

Trump’s Strategic Triangle

Trump’s approach to resolving the Ukraine war may have an additional twist that benefits Russia. Recent comments by Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggest that the U.S. wants to strengthen Russia so as to wean it away from China.

It’s a reversal of the Nixon strategy in the 1970s, when (as part of Henry Kissinger’s strategic triangle idea) U.S. policy was to engage with China in order to weaken the Soviet Union. Rubio said:
“I don’t know if we’ll ever be successful completely at peeling them [the Russians] off of a relationship with the Chinese. I also don’t think having China and Russia at each other’s neck is good for global stability because they’re both nuclear powers, but I do think we’re in a situation now where the Russians have become increasingly dependent on the Chinese and that’s not a good outcome either if you think about it.”

If reducing Russian dependence on China is indeed the U.S. strategy, it further helps explain why Trump has asked nothing of Putin and everything of Ukraine. What better incentives for Putin to move away from China than delivering Ukraine and Europe to him?

Thus does Trump become an easy mark for Putin — his best hope for ensuring that Russia will have predominant influence in Europe — not mainly through military moves, though the threat is there all along Russia’s borderland, but in political influence over far-right parties.

Yet the strategy has numerous holes in it. The Russia-China strategic partnership is tighter than ever, and strongly focused on creating a new world order that can compete with the U.S. bloc. China has far more material benefits to offer Russia than does Trump.

Playing the Russia card, moreover, could easily backfire: Russia takes its gains in Europe without shedding its close ties with Beijing, leaving Trump with nothing to show for having sacrificed an independent country to a very ambitious dictator.

(Mel Gurtov is professor emeritus of political science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.)