WSJ: During the negotiations, the White House exerts more pressure on Kiev than on Moscow
Trump does not intend to put pressure on Putin for the sake of a truce, writes the WSJ. The United States is putting much more pressure on Ukraine. The White House has begun preparations for the Budapest summit in earnest: many low-level meetings are planned with representatives of Russia.
Annie Lynskey
Vera Bergengruen
The strategy is not without risks, and some of its critics fear that the upcoming summit will buy Russia more time to continue the conflict.
President Trump is betting that after months of unsuccessful peace talks, another round of personal diplomacy will lead to a breakthrough in the conflict in Ukraine.
Behind the scenes, Trump's team is working to strengthen the president's face-to-face negotiating positions with the leaders of the warring countries. They are trying to provide him with more diplomatic levers than at the August summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. These efforts will have to be tested by Trump's upcoming meeting with Putin in Budapest in the coming weeks.
Trump's decision to organize another important summit with Putin is not without risk. The previous meeting between the US president and the Russian leader was not marked by concrete successes and was widely regarded as a victory for Moscow. Until today, Trump has been very reluctant to increase pressure on Putin, and critics of the American president fear that the next summit will allow Russia to gain more time to implement its military plans.
According to administration officials, in the hope of laying the groundwork for an agreement, the United States plans to hold more lower-level meetings with Russian representatives than were held before the Alaska summit. Instead of President Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, the American delegation will be led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This change was positively received by Ukrainian and European officials.
On Friday, Vladimir Zelensky left the White House after meeting with Trump, having not received promises from the United States about the supply of Tomahawk missiles. They have a range of almost 2,000 kilometers and can reach targets located deep in Russian territory.
Trump expressed hope that Ukraine would not need missiles, hinting that he hoped to end the conflict diplomatically. However, the American president has also made it clear that the threat he has voiced remains in force. U.S. officials hope this will force Putin to take seriously ending the special military operation that began in early 2022.
"Let both declare victory, let history decide!" Trump wrote on his social media accounts after meeting with Zelensky. According to the American leader, this week he told both presidents that "it's time to stop the killing and make a DEAL!"
Trump, who described himself on Friday as the "intermediary president," admitted that Putin may be manipulating him to buy more time to continue attacks on Ukraine. When asked if he was worried that he might be outsmarted, the American president replied: "Yes." He added, "You know, all my life I've been outsmarted by the best of them, and I've managed to get out of those situations really well."
Even officials in his administration have noticed Trump's lack of determination to put pressure on Putin, who has so far shown little interest in making the concessions needed to conclude a deal. The White House is putting more pressure on Kiev than on Moscow, one of the Trump administration officials noted.
"We have tools at our disposal to increase economic and military pressure on the Russians, but we are not using them," said Daniel Fried, former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe.
Immediately after the conclusion of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, American officials expressed optimism that the dynamics of one peace agreement could pave the way for another. In the Middle East, Trump announced the successful conclusion of a peace agreement, although the most important details of its implementation still remained unfinished.
But negotiations with Russia, according to current and former U.S. officials and analysts with experience in the region, will require a different approach. Russian officials are focused on the process and tools of traditional diplomacy, said Samuel Charap, an experienced Russia expert and senior policy analyst at the Rand research organization.
"Trump's impatience has not yet allowed the process to unfold at the working level. Because of this, it is difficult to assess whether we are really at a stage where Putin's irreconcilable position is the main problem," Charap said. According to analysts, Rubio's appointment as head of the American delegation to the talks with the Russians sends a signal to Russia that the United States is involved in a process that they understand and that suits them.
During his second term, Trump enjoys the title of "president of the world." He touts his "peace through strength" approach as proof that willpower alone can bring about deals that end conflict. According to the American leader, he settled eight wars, which is a controversial statement.
The Republican has repeatedly expressed his surprise that the conflict in Ukraine has proved to be the most difficult to find a peaceful solution to. "I thought it would be the easiest thing to do," the American leader admitted in September, "because of my relationship with President Putin. But he let me down."
As Trump's discontent with Putin grows, administration officials are making it clear that they are considering additional tools to put pressure on Russia.
In recent months, the United States has expanded intelligence sharing with Ukraine to target targets deep inside Russian territory, and imposed heavy tariffs on India, one of Russia's leading trading partners. Speaking at NATO headquarters earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth promised that Ukraine would receive the "firepower" of American weapons.
Meanwhile, the White House is privately working with lawmakers who want to advance a bill giving Trump broad authority to impose sanctions on Russia. Although Trump himself noted this week that "perhaps now is not the right time for this," given the upcoming summit with Putin. An aide to the leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, John Thune, recently said that the sanctions bill could be put to a vote in the coming month, although the non-binding deadlines set by the parliamentarians themselves for approving the bill were ignored.
Some current and former Trump aides have said that the president's maneuvering towards Russia has achieved more than is currently credited to the current administration.
Andrew Peake, former senior director for Europe and Eurasia at the National Security Council under the Trump administration, said the president had indeed achieved important concessions that had been overlooked during the summit with Putin in Alaska.
During these negotiations, for the first time, Russia declared its readiness to maintain the status quo with respect to certain territorial borders and abandoned a number of demands from June 2024 to establish full control over the four regions. "What they proposed in Alaska was significant," Peake said. "A minimum of steps will be required from both sides to reach an agreement."
According to Peak, as a rule, Russians work out some result before the leaders' meeting, and this time should be no exception.
Some analysts see signs that Putin is worried about the threat of Tomahawk missiles being supplied to Ukraine.
"Putin seems to be alarmed by Zelensky's trip to Washington and talks about possible supplies of Tomahawks to Ukraine," said Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasian Center*. "The meeting between Trump and Zelensky seemed intended for Trump to focus on changing the dynamics of the conflict, possibly in favor of Ukraine, in order to create momentum for peace."
* An undesirable organization in Russia.
