Putin Confronts a “Surprised” Trump with a Dilemma

dictator” and said it was Ukraine that started the war. At the United Nations he had the U.S. vote against a resolution condemning Russia for its aggression against Ukraine, taking Russia’s side along with North Korea, Belarus, Israel (!), and fourteen other countries in Russia’s orbit.

On taking office a second time, Mr. Trump apparently surmised that he had fostered a glowing relationship with Mr. Putin, who would succumb to the force of his personality and obligingly call a halt to the war. He had many times said what he told the crowd at a campaign rally a year ago:

”Before I even arrive at the Oval Office , shortly after we win the presidency...I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. I know 'em both. I will get it settled.”

That became the repeated refrain, that he would have the war ended on “Day 1”, in “24 hours” after taking the oath.

Instead, Trump has found Putin intransigent, refusing to agree to a 30-day cease fire despite the White House having conceded everything in the Kremlin’s favor and to the detriment of Ukraine – no joining NATO, no security guarantee, even acceding to negotiations before any cease fire while Russia continues hammering Ukraine's cities. Russia only asks for more, the latest “unacceptable demands” being that Ukraine withdraw its forces from large swaths of its own territory.

Zelenskyy went to peace talks in Istanbul between Ukraine and Russia two weeks ago but Putin was a no-show, sending only an adviser. Trump waived off Putin’s rebuff saying nothing will happen short of a face-to-face meeting between himself and the Russian leader, claiming after the fact a prediction he had not made:

“They all said Putin was going and Zelenskyy was going. And I said, ‘If I don’t go, I guarantee Putin is not going,’ and he didn’t go.”

Putin took the opposite course, doubling down by launching massive waves of drone attacks against Ukraine’s cities, the biggest of the entire war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyir Zelenskyy with troops.

More than 355 drones the night of May 25. The night before: 298 drones and more than 69 ballistic and cruise missiles. "Russian strikes are becoming increasingly brazen and large-scale every night," Zelenskyy said in his daily address — some 900 drones and missiles launched at Ukraine in just the three days of what for the U.S. was the Memorial Day weekend. Putin is launching these strike while negotiations are going on and just days after Trump says he talked to Putin for two hours by phone.

With his extravagant claims of influence over Putin a bust, Trump finds he has painted himself into a corner. His tweet shows a helplessness:

”He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine for no reason whatsoever… I don't like it, and it better stop.”

To reporters he said the same:

”I’m surprised. I’m very surprised. We’ll see what we’re gonna do. I don’t like what Putin is doing, not even a little bit. He’s killing people. And something happened to this guy. And I don’t like it”

Two days later Trump said,

"I'm very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights now where people were killed in the middle of what you would call a negotiation. I'm very disappointed by that."

He shows Putin he doesn’t have the cards, to use the phrase he used on Zelenskyy, that the Russian dictator has the stronger hand by the U.S. having yielded everything and asking nothing in return. This has led Putin to think he has a clear shot at taking Ukraine entirely.

Moreover, Putin wants to continue the war. The Russians just celebrated the 80th anniversary of the defeat of the Germans in World War II, in which at least 20 million of their people died. May 9th is their most important holiday of the year, whereas few Americans even know as little as the date — May 8th for our GIs. A strong argument can be made that war is an indispensable part of how Russians see the world and their place in it, says the 2017 book "Russia: The Story of War" by Tufts professor Gregory Carleton. Putin evidently sees himself as continuing the long sweep of Russia battling invading Mongols, Swedes, the French, the Germans — all on native soil. In 1898, Nikolai Sukhotin, director of the General Staff Academy, the Russian West Point, calculated that Russia had waged war for 353 of the previous 525 years, two-thirds of its history as a nation, and even that span doesn't reach back far enough to include perhaps Russia's greatest hero (made Orthodox Church saint) Alexander Nevsky battling both Swedes and Germans in the 13th Century.

Gary Saul Morson, in an article in "Commentary" a year ago, observed that in our war movies the heroes (mostly) survive whereas Russian war movies and novels feature as much death as possible, including the heroes. No greater claim to heroism can there be than giving up their lives for the mother Russia. Morson writes:

"Stories of mass death redeem Russia’s defeats, whether in World War I, Chechnya, or Afghanistan. The standard plot is that, against all odds, Russian defenders continue fighting even when defeat is certain and there is no hope of escape."

This goes a long way to explaining Putin's indifference to the terrible death toll of Russian soldiers in Ukraine as he conscripts ever more thousands and empties the prisons onto the battlefield.

"Also clear is his confidence that Russia can outlast its foes and that Western powers will tire of paying for a war before Russians tire of dying in it."

A while back, our July 2022 article “The West Needs Constant Reminding, Putin Won’t Stop at Ukraine” reported on Putin becoming imbued with Russian history which tells him Ukraine cannot be separate because in lore Kyiv was Ur Russia's wellspring city. Moscow came later. He is perceived to have adopted a civilizational view of where Russia fits in the world, with emphasis on Russian Orthodox Christianity. In 2013 he went to Kyiv and spoke of Ukraine as "our common Fatherland, Great Rus". For Putin, Ukraine is part of Russia, and he will destroy it and its people rather than give it up.

If Donald Trump thought on returning to the White House he could just pick up the phone for a cordial chat with Vladimir and make the Ukraine problem just go away, he showed he had no knowledge of Russian history and its war ethos. The 2022 article quoted François Hollande, the former French president:

“We did not realize that Putin had spun himself into a historical mythology and was thinking in categories of a 1,000-year empire. You cannot deter someone like that with sanctions.”

on the horns of...

Yet sanctions are what some Republicans in Congress have in mind. A number of them, seeing a bleak outcome if the U.S. fails to support Ukraine, are pressing Trump to take action against Putin to force
Ukraine artillery barrage.

an end to the war. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley even resorted to social media to urge the president to act. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has a "neutron bomb" sanctions regimen that would impose 500% tariffs on any country importing Russian oil, gas, petroleum products or uranium from Russia. He says he's got more than 80 senators on board to pass this bill. Graham needs reminding that Putin has actual bombs, and of the thermonuclear sort — that it's best not to press too hard.

Trump has not decided what to do. Questions are met with his standard 'We'll see what happens", as was one reporter's question last week about sanctions or military assistance. Asked, "Mr. President, what do you want to do about that?", Trump replied,

"What, am I going to tell you? You're the fake news aren't you? You're totally fake."

Asked by a reporter two days ago, "What stopped you from imposing new sanctions on Russia?", Mr. Trump's answer...

"Only the fact that, if I think I'm close to getting a deal I don't want to screw it up by doing that"

...betrays his belief that he can win Putin over, even tossing in "Lemme tell ya, I'm a lot tougher than the people you're talking about" to the British-accented reporter.

Putin's showing no interest in ending the war makes this delusional. Trump will be faced with the dilemma of whether to issue harsher sanctions, go on funding Ukraine's weapon purchases, or continue permitting European countries buying weapons from the U.S. for transshipment to Ukraine.

Instead he wants to divorce himself from the war, always calling it "Biden's war", as if to say Joe was at fault for helping Ukrainians thwart the Russian takeover of their country. In that same presser, he said:

"This isn't my war, this is Biden's war, Zelenskyy's war, and Putin's war. This isn't Trump's war. I'm only here for one thing, to see if I can end it, to save 5,000 lives a week."

It sounds like he is seeding the ground for abandonment. He has said, absurdly, “This is a war that would never have started if I were President”, which is as valid as his boast of ending the war "in 24 hours" after taking office. He needs to know that, if he ends U.S. support and allows the Russian conquest of Ukraine, it will not only be Trump's war but a Chamberlain-level ignominy that will live on in history, and by the way, dwarf Biden's shambolic evacuation of Afghanistan that he so often brings up.