Trump's school of negotiation nonsense

Of course, they partly lean on the prestige of the countries they are (unfortunately for us) fortunate enough to lead. But what they bring to the table is more style than substance.

The entire negotiation approach of the Trump team since January 20 has revolved around this particular style. Their “mediation” — unsolicited and impossible to reject outright — is purely self-initiated, driven by a desire to showcase Trump's masculinity, effectiveness, and supposed brilliance. They genuinely believed they could sort everything out quickly: intimidate Ukraine and Zelenskyy personally, rely on their “great relationship” with Putin, get a couple of favors from him, and voilà — problem solved.

Why did everything go wrong? 

First, Ukraine had no reason to cave to blackmail. The country has endured the largest-scale military aggression since World War II and understands what real resilience under pressure means. And while there are always voices shouting that it should sign any deal just to stop the war, why should anyone take them seriously?

Second, there’s only one scenario where Putin would agree to genuine negotiations: if ending the war becomes less risky for him than continuing it. Of course, we’re talking about his perception of risk—not objective reality. Based on what we’re seeing at the front, he still clings to the hope of improving his "negotiating position" by seizing more territory.

If Putin agrees to real negotiations, it means he already sees continuing the war as a catastrophic risk — or he’s preparing to start another conflict elsewhere, just to avoid demobilizing his army and pulling Russia out of its “besieged fortress” mindset.

If Putin is now “agreeing” or “almost agreeing” to anything, there’s only one credible way to show it: a ceasefire. That’s what Ukraine is demanding, and what the U.S. agreed to back in March. It’s the essential first step. Everything else must follow from there.

But even that first step — a ceasefire — is no small feat. To take this supposedly “simple” step, we actually need to tackle three enormously complex issues.

1. The first question is how to draw the demarcation line—and who gets to do it. The UN? A joint council of neutral countries? Who?
2. Second, who will actually monitor the ceasefire, and how? We’re talking about at least 10,000 personnel along the entire front line — the Swiss ran the numbers. 
3. Third, the humanitarian track: for any real negotiation to move forward, we need a full exchange of prisoners as a baseline. That means verifying the lists from both sides.

I get that in Trump-world, there’s an imaginary “office of simple solutions” where everything gets fixed with a phone call and a handshake. But until these three core issues are actually on the table, what they’re talking about isn’t negotiation to end a war — it’s just tomfoolery.

From what I can tell, Trump and his crew genuinely believe Ukraine is just a U.S. puppet, Europe doesn’t matter, and Putin is a buddy. So they think they can skip over all the complex realities and settle everything with a vague “gentleman’s agreement” with Putin.

But then reality kicks in: Ukraine isn’t surrendering and will only agree to talks that leave open the possibility of regaining its territory. Europe isn’t lifting sanctions — and without that or major foreign investment, no peace deal helps Putin anyway. And Putin is not coming to the table with reasonable asks — only extreme demands.

That is why Rubio did not fly to London. Kellogg may also hear a polite “come back when conditions are right” from Ukraine and Europe. He's no stranger to it. 

Honestly, I’m still stunned by how unbelievably stupid this administration is. The way Witkoff is getting bent over backwards by the Russians is almost impressive in its naivety — and Trump is falling for every bit of it. But Ukraine has to hold the line. If Putin doesn’t suddenly push for a “truce,” we’ll need to stall — long enough to get all the support promised by Biden.

Then, we wait. Wait for Trump to stumble in Iran and China. Wait for Putin to realize he can’t actually get what he wants. That’ll take a few months.

After that, real negotiations might become possible. But it’s not even a given that we’ll need Trump to mediate them.

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About the author. Yuriy Bohdanov, publicist, expert in strategic communications in business, public administration and politics

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