The conventional wisdom is that President Donald Trump is far more critical of Ukraine’s government than he is of Russia’s while trying to end the war between the two countries. It’s not an entirely unfair criticism.
Trump’s social media posts threatening stepped-up sanctions against Russia or telling the Russian President Vladimir Putin to “STOP” his attacks on Ukraine understandably received less attention than his memorable Oval Office showdown with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump has often failed to describe Russia as the aggressor, other complexities in Moscow–Kiev relations since the end of the Cold War notwithstanding, and could stand to be seen pressuring Putin.
But on closer inspection, Trump has often talked tougher with the government he currently sees as the primary obstacle to a peace deal ending the war in Ukraine. “I can tell you what the president said last night and that is he is frustrated with leaders on both sides of this war,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier this month. “He wants this war to end. There are men that are dying on both sides and it’s been going on for far too long.”
Some might treat this as moral equivalence or another iteration of “very fine people on both sides.” But there are valid reasons other than those offered in the standard Trump-Russia fearmongering to tread lightly. An important part of these negotiations is about trying to get Russia to quit while it’s ahead.
Putin isn’t easily movable by moral suasion. One of his key advantages in this war has been that he is by all appearances the least concerned about the death toll, Ukrainian or Russian, of all interested parties. Russia has a history of tolerating high casualties among its troops, which Ukraine cannot (and should not) match.
Yet it is Putin, as the most dedicated Ukraine hawks often remind us, who must be prevailed upon to stop the killing.
Russia also knows that Trump doesn’t want to fund Ukraine indefinitely, as the former President Joe Biden seemed willing to do (and even he may have had his limits). Trump also doesn’t want to expose the United States to the risk of a wider war. All this is why peace is possible and Russia is more or less at the table. But it also creates the possibility of Putin waiting Washington out. (The Trump administration has also made clear that talks can’t go on forever.)
The basic framework of the peace deal Trump is attempting to secure is simply a recognition of reality. Ukraine cannot for the foreseeable future win back much of the territory it lost in the war—and especially before the current war—or join NATO. Russia cannot realistically take much more Ukrainian territory than it already has, but it can inflict much more death and destruction trying.
This may not be a morally and emotionally satisfying outcome, though it need not be a permanent one. It may, depending on the precise terms of any agreement, be the most efficacious way to save Ukrainian lives right now, even if better diplomacy in 2021 would have been preferable.
Trump spoke of trying to get back as much Ukrainian territory as possible just before the White House meeting with Zelensky went awry. Security guarantees for Ukraine, even if short of NATO membership, will be a critical detail of any deal. The Ukrainians rightly want to ensure that Russia won’t simply invade again in a few months or years.
But the idea that any of this can happen with zero elements that are attractive to Russia (we have tragically established that sparing Russian troops’ lives will not be enough) is implausible or that the usual Trumpian war of words, but directed at Putin rather than Zelensky, will be helpful seems impossible. (The limits of Trump’s verbal abuse, especially as a negotiating tool, is something his political opponents would recognize in almost any other context.)
Sadly, many Americans find it difficult to separate their views of the war in Ukraine from how they feel about Trump. But if there is no viable path to Ukraine winning the war, the mayhem can only be ended through an agreement between both sides.
If that cannot happen in the not too distant future, “frustrating” would be an understatement.
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