No real progress between Trump and Putin: U.S. president threatens Kremlin

Trump emphasized that ending the war requires a deal with Russia. We need an agreement, otherwise this will go on, he said.

Of course, the American president also talked a lot about the need to bring this money back to the U.S. He keeps citing an amount that was never actually allocated by the U.S. but was given to Ukraine as aid.

Comparing the U.S. providing Ukraine with non-repayable aid while the European Union issued loans, Trump argues this is unfair to America.

Since non-repayable aid can’t be turned into debt, the president is looking for another way — securing a return on this aid through an agreement on access to Ukrainian resources and minerals.

This, however, remains uncertain. No one can say how Ukrainian resources will be valued once extraction begins, what security conditions will be like when American companies can operate, or even what the details of this agreement will be. The deal, expected to be signed at the White House this Friday, will likely come with additional documents, some of which may not even be finalized until Trump’s time in office is nearly over.

One way or another, Donald Trump has pitched a compelling formula to his base for how he plans to bring America’s money back. But for Putin, it’s a clear message: if he doesn’t agree to end or suspend the war, things won’t get easier for him. Meanwhile, the American president keeps pushing the idea of a peacekeeping contingent, which Russia flatly rejects. The war will go on, and U.S. support for Ukraine will continue. That’s the formula in a nutshell — without an agreement, nothing changes, and Ukraine gets to keep fighting.

This makes it clear that, despite what the American president says about successful negotiations, he and Putin aren’t making real progress. If they were, there’d be no need for these signals or warnings about further U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Trump is playing a game Putin understands. For now, he’s holding back on new aid, even supporting a UN resolution that avoids mentioning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. But these are just, so to speak, goodwill gestures. If Putin doesn’t play along, everything can shift. The real question is how this affects the Russian president.

On one hand, Putin might see these signals as a concern. On the other, he might view the war as sustainable and the situation as working in Russia’s favor, draining Ukraine and the West’s resources. It all depends on how he reads the situation.

At this point, Trump has fewer pressure tactics against Russia than actual bargaining tools, like the possibility of co-developing Russian resources or lifting sanctions.

The key question for the Kremlin is this: Does stopping the war in exchange for economic incentives from the U.S. make sense, or is continuing the fight a bigger priority? If Putin believes that taking Ukraine matters more than Trump’s promises, then the logic is simple — if he wins, the world changes so much that today’s U.S. commitments won’t matter. Whoever the next American president is, they’ll have to deal with him as the victor.

Of course, everything depends not just on how the American president warns the Russian one, but, as I’ve said many times, on the state of the Russian economy, on Putin’s ability to sustain it through a long war, and on his capacity to maintain social stability in Russia.

If Putin isn’t sure he’ll have enough money, even with backing from the Global South, he’ll have no choice but to consider at least the truce Trump is offering.

Even then, he’ll stall for as long as possible, trying to grab more Ukrainian territory or inflict more damage on Ukraine’s infrastructure, especially if he knows full-scale occupation is off the table, at least while Donald Trump is in the White House.

So, this isn’t just about Trump pressuring Ukraine. As I’ve already pointed out, given Ukraine’s reliance on U.S. military and financial aid, that kind of pressure isn’t difficult. But this is also about pressuring Russia. And here, Trump has far fewer levers to pull than he does with Ukraine.

Source

About the author. Vitaliy Portnykov, journalist, National Shevchenko Prize laureate

The editorial team does not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.