Donald Trump hands Putin win with retreat from Ukraine peace talks

By Ramsey Al-Rikabi and Courtney McBride

  Eleven days ago, European leaders took heart when President Donald Trump called for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened new sanctions on Russia. A telephone call with Vladimir Putin on Monday revealed those hopes were misplaced. 

After two hours talking with Putin, Trump said on social media that Ukraine and Russia would “immediately start negotiations” toward a ceasefire — but possibly without the US. There was no sanctions threat, no demand for a time-line, and no pressure on the Russian leader.  

Trump followed the Putin call by reaching out to European leaders, but already several governments were airing their disappointment. After months of failing to move Putin closer to peace, they fear Trump is pulling back from his efforts to end the war, leaving Ukraine and its allies on their own. 

 

One European official, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations, said leaders fear that Trump is disengaging from the diplomatic effort. Another said Trump had made it clear he didn’t want to impose more sanctions at this stage and was retreating from his own proposal for a ceasefire. The official added that leaders in Kyiv and elsewhere in Europe disagree with his plan for Russia and Ukraine to talk directly. 

By having Moscow and Kyiv negotiate directly on a framework for peace talks before a truce is in place, Trump is essentially allowing Putin to buy time, said another European official familiar with Monday’s discussions. In Istanbul last week, Russian negotiators presented maximalist demands, including international recognition of Moscow’s control of four Ukrainian regions that Putin’s forces don’t fully occupy and restrictions on Kyiv’s military capabilities.  

“Today, it feels like we are back into a much longer-term scenario, in which Putin is buying himself and his military more time,” said Kristine Berzina, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Geostrategy North program in Washington. “Putin won himself more opportunities, and a ceasefire and a resolution seem ever further away.” 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov underscored the lack of a hard timeline for a ceasefire. “There is no deadline, and there can’t be one,” he told reporters, according to the state-run Tass news service. “It is clear that everyone wants to do it as quickly as possible, but the devil is in the details.” 

Adding to the confusion around the US stance, Trump said later Monday the US wasn’t withdrawing from the conflict but that he was considering whether to do so and that there was even a “certain line,” which he declined to articulate, at which he’d walk away. He also didn’t rule out further sanctions on Russia or fresh weapons shipments to Ukraine, but made clear he was disinclined to do either.  

“I think something’s going to happen, and if it doesn’t, I just back away and they’re going to have to keep going,” he said at the White House. “This is a European situation. It should have remained a European situation.” 

What Bloomberg Economics Says... 

“Despite US President Donald Trump’s description of having an ‘excellent’ conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, the call yielded no apparent breakthrough over Ukraine.” 

“It remains unclear whether this signals a genuine shift in the Kremlin’s stance or a continued effort to delay talks while Russian forces try to gain more ground in Ukraine: the former is less likely than the latter.” 

— Alex Kokcharov

The muddled outcome adds to Trump’s growing political challenges. He campaigned on promises to swiftly bring peace to Europe and the Middle East, as well as rewire and revive the American economy through tariffs, yet both efforts are bogged down in the messy and unpredictable realities of geopolitics and trade.  

Trump’s comments Monday were more ambivalent toward the conflict, and his role ending it, than just last week, when he told reporters “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together.” He had also said the US was “committed to securing peace between Russia and Ukraine.” Trump had even suggested he was willing to make a detour from his Middle East tour to Istanbul to meet Putin face-to-face.  

But Russia sent a low-level delegation to Turkey and Trump did not appear. At the talks, Russian and Ukrainian officials agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each but made no other headway in their first direct talks since soon after Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion.  

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who’s already on board with Trump’s demand for an immediate ceasefire, spoke to the US leader before and after the Putin call, and said Russia must face stronger sanctions if it doesn’t stop the fighting.  

“Ukraine is ready for a full and unconditional ceasefire,” Zelenskiy said on social media Monday evening. “It is important not to dilute this proposal. If the Russians are not ready to stop the killings, there must be stronger sanctions.” He also said that Ukraine was ready for direct negotiations with Russia “in any format that brings results.” 

But Trump didn’t seem to agree about the need for more sanctions, while also calling Zelenskiy “not the easiest person to deal with.” 

Putin told reporters in Sochi that the call was “frank” and “very useful,” and said the two agreed that Russia would work on a memorandum with Ukraine for a possible future peace treaty. He offered no details, adding his core talking point: “The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis.” 

Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that, from Putin’s perspective, this includes “the very existence of the Ukrainian state in its current form.” 

“Rhetorically, Russia presents itself as open to negotiations and publicly welcomes US efforts, to avoid irritating the US government,” she said. “But in practice, it sticks firmly to its original position.” 

In another unexpected move, Trump also said the Vatican would be willing to host peace negotiations. Asked at the White House if the newly elevated Pope Leo XIV could help bring peace to Ukraine, Trump said: “I do.” He had the same answer when asked if he believed Putin wanted peace.  

The US holds substantial leverage over Russia if the president is prepared to use it, said John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine. Washington could “open the pipeline for substantial military supplies to Ukraine,” either as assistance or sales, as well as impose tougher sanctions.  

Leading up to Monday’s phone call, US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, rallied support for a sanctions package, signaling to Putin wide bipartisan support for punishing Russia. Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that the Senate has a Russia sanctions bill “ready to go.”  

“If the White House concludes that tougher sanctions are in order,” he said, “we’re here for it.”