Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — When it comes to a possible peace deal to end the ongoing war in Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian officials are holding fast to separate assumptions.
As it stands, Kyiv has no faith that Trump can secure a favorable deal. Instead, Ukrainian officials are pinning their hopes on the U.S. president growing exasperated with a recalcitrant Russian president, leading Trump to back them more directly. They believe Russian leader Vladimir Putin won’t agree to anything short of abject Ukrainian surrender — a condition the dealmaker in Trump will shun.
Trump, on the other hand, appears to think he can simply cajole and bully Putin into a fair settlement by threatening to unleash unrestrained economic warfare, which will compound the problems engulfing Russia’s economy.
The assumption that turns out to be right will decide Ukraine’s fate. It will also say much about whether Trump is, indeed, the great dealmaker he claims to be. However, there’s also a chance both parties might find they’re wrong.
How exactly the U.S. president means to handle Putin first became clear last week, when — to Ukraine’s relief — he began threatening economic warfare. “We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better,” Trump warned in a message addressed directly to Putin on his social media site Truth Social. He said he was ready to slap tariffs and impose even more sanctions on Russia if Putin failed to negotiate an end to the war.
In an interview with Fox News the following day, Trump repeated his willingness to use any financial weapons necessary against Russia in order to stop the war.
Initially, his message prompted yawns from some Russian officials, but within hours, there was a switch. Putin suddenly began praising Trump and saying he was ready for talks, describing their relationship as “businesslike, pragmatic and trustworthy.” He flattered Trump by echoing the newly inaugurated president’s claim that the war would never have happened had he been in the White House in 2022 , and parroting his debunked assertion that the 2020 U.S. election was “stolen.”
These threats of supercharged sanctions and tariffs are part of the tactical approach favored by Trump’s special envoy, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg. Rather than making a clean break and halting military aid to Ukraine as urged by some MAGA loyalists, including Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, Kellogg wants to use American strength to secure peace — even if it takes months.
Before Trump’s inauguration, Ukraine was frustrated it wasn’t being invited to participate in planning and coordination with Trump’s team, fueling the country’s anxiety. Nonetheless, according to a top Republican lobbyist who advises Ukrainian agencies, a December meeting between Kellogg, Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s powerful Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak went rather smoothly.
“Trump needs to conclude on his own that Putin isn’t willing to make any concessions — not to Ukraine but to him,” the lobbyist said, asking not to be identified in order to speak freely. “This needs to be an iterative process and throughout, Ukraine needs to be the constructive party. Trump and his aides need to experience the Russians for themselves, then they will see.”
In line with that advice, Ukraine is playing along — though Kyiv remains nervous that Putin may be able to exploit Trump’s desire for a deal at their cost. That worry was underlined by Zelenskyy during a television address this weekend, when he raised the risk of a prevaricating Putin managing to string Trump along and “manipulate” him with flattery.
But while Ukraine’s strategy is built on the shaky assumption that Trump will finally lose patience with a double-dealing Putin, the assumption embraced by Trump’s team — that the Russian revanchist is primed to negotiate for economic reasons — seems dubious as well.
Clik here to view.
In his post threatening economic punishment, Trump said that he was doing Russia a “very big favor” by pushing to settle the war, because the country’s “economy is failing.” Indeed, Russia’s currency has now lost more than half of its value against the U.S. dollar and the euro. A recent study by the Kyiv School of Economics suggests the Russian government is generating less revenue from oil sales than it was before. And in his annual televised Q&A session in December, Putin himself acknowledged that rising inflation is becoming a problem.
But despite that, few seasoned observers actually think Putin’s in a negotiating mood. Analysts Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Michael Kofman believe there’s now little incentive for Putin to stop the war because he’s reached the point of no return. “The war has hardened Putin’s resolve and narrowed his options. There is no turning back: Putin has already transformed Russia’s society, economy, and foreign policy to better position the Kremlin to take on the West,” they wrote.
Nor is there domestic pressure for the war to be ended — in fact, quite the reverse. “The war has become a wealth transfer mechanism channeling money to Russia’s poor regions, and many economic elites have moved into the defense sector to cash in on lucrative opportunities. Elites have, by now, adjusted to the system’s current configuration, enabling them not just to survive but to profit,” they said.
And they aren’t alone in harboring doubts that Putin wants to end the war at this juncture. Western leaders had thought that sanctions and economic pain would bring Russia to heel before, only to be disabused of that notion — and Trump may just be the next to find that out.
“There is actually very little to indicate that Russian President Vladimir Putin is interested in a negotiated settlement,” said Mykola Bielieskov of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, the research arm of the National Defense University funded by the Pentagon.
In fact, Bielieskov believes Putin has reasons to be more confident now than he was last year: Russia has maintained battlefield initiative for months now, and while they didn’t pull off any landmark successes in 2024, they did manage to accrue consistent gains along the front line. “Putin’s invading army may be able to achieve a more decisive breakthrough in the coming year,” he warned.
And stringing Trump along to ensure he doesn’t order a step change in U.S. support may just help Russia manage that breakthrough.