Both Trump and Putin need negotiations — but for very different reasons

Among all the participants (Ukraine, the USA, the EU, and Russia), Putin needs the negotiations the most. His demands are purely political. Neither a "new security architecture," nor the lifting of sanctions, nor the recognition of the occupied territories by the Kremlin - none of these issues can be resolved through waging war in Ukraine. These are political demands that can only be addressed through negotiations.

War is the continuation of politics. In this case, it is essentially stated: if you do not accept our terms, we will kill 100 randomly selected people every day. And, unlike "ordinary" terrorists, who may not follow through on their threats, Putin fulfills his threats, and, considering the Russian soldiers, an enormous number of people die simply because he conducts negotiations this way.

“Negotiating with a serial killer, even if he controls a large gas station, is difficult for everyone.”

Emotionally speaking, if the president of a hypothetical France needs to win elections to have the opportunity to negotiate, the president of Russia, for the same reason, needs to kill hundreds of thousands of people - adults and children. He even needs to bomb a maternity hospital in Mariupol or a children's hospital in Kyiv. This is one of the reasons why, since February 2022, no leaders from countries with functioning electoral systems have been able to negotiate with him. Because this will inevitably be brought up in the elections.

Another point is that the new U.S. administration faces the same problems as the aforementioned hypothetical president of hypothetical France. However, since the war did not start under their watch, they can "turn off their memory" and not think about uncomfortable matters. And since they are also dependent on public opinion, messages are put into the public space to justify and explain their policy.

That’s why we see Trump, Rubio, or Witkoff making blatantly manipulative statements. But, of course, they understand very well - both about the referendum, the "encirclement in the Kursk region," and many other things. However, for the American public, Ukraine and the war in Europe are issues of little importance. So, they are fed these messages to ensure that public opinion doesn’t interfere with the new administration’s work, and voters support their actions. In other words, no matter how difficult it is for us to accept, they are simply doing their job.

The extent to which the American administration depends on the support of Americans is reflected in sociology. The importance of public support can be seen in the example of the well-known statement "Zelenskyy is a dictator" made by Trump. A few days later, sociological data showed that the vast majority of Americans considered Putin a dictator, with Trump in second place, and only in third place, by a large margin, was Zelenskyy. After that, Donald Trump quickly claimed that he did not remember calling Zelenskyy a dictator, and that Zelenskyy was actually a great guy, and he couldn’t wait for them to finally meet at the White House.

“Sociology from last week (GALLUP) shows that 46% of Americans believe that support for Ukraine is insufficient, 30% think it is excessive, and 23% believe it is at an appropriate level. Moreover, the latter two categories show a tendency to decrease, while the share of supporters of Ukraine is slightly, but steadily, growing.”

Additionally, 53% of Americans believe that the U.S. should support Ukraine until the occupied territories are returned. In contrast, 45% support ending the war as soon as possible, even at the cost of Ukrainian territories.

Most likely, it is sociology that is driving the U.S. administration to continue addressing the issue of ending the war in Ukraine. While Ukraine may not play a key role in U.S. domestic politics, sociology shows that the majority of Americans have their own opinion on the matter, and the U.S. administration cannot ignore it.

In these conditions, a hypothetical end to the war with active U.S. involvement would give Donald Trump additional support within the country. Moreover, these could potentially be very high numbers. Clearly, this is one of the main reasons why the U.S. is and will continue to be involved in organizing negotiations.

“Thus, it turns out that negotiations are needed by both Donald Trump and Putin. The difference is that each of them has their own motivation.”

We can talk as much as we want about Trump acting under the influence of Russian propaganda, but it’s more likely that this is just our desire to see it that way. In reality, they are probably just working with public opinion inside the country to increase the share of Americans who support the immediate end of the war, making it larger than those who demand increased support from the U.S. As mentioned above, there are currently 45% in favor of ending the war versus 53% advocating for more support, meaning the difference isn’t huge, and with this kind of sociology, they can work with it.

I don’t know if Ukraine is working with public opinion in the U.S., but I do know that if we want to keep America as our ally in this war, we must do the same.

Source

About the author. Mykola Kniazhytskyi, journalist, Ukrainian MP.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the blog or column authors.