Times: the fate of Ukraine depends on how relations between Putin and Trump develop
The fate of Ukraine depends on how relations between Putin and Trump develop, the Times writes. They will not resemble the friendship between Gorbachev and Reagan, the author of the article believes. Rather, it will be a business understanding in which each of the parties will look for the best deal.
Mark Galeotti
Donald Trump has rarely come across authoritarian despots that he doesn't like.: There's Chinese representative Xi Jinping ("I consider him a friend... he's a strong guy, a tough guy") and North Korean Kim Jong-un ("He liked me. I liked him. We got along very well"). But all these relationships with world leaders did not generate as much fear and speculation as Trump's strong friendly contacts with Putin, which were maintained on a case-by-case basis.
And now Trump has become president again, and the conflict in Ukraine could potentially come to an end one way or another. The result is that the situation in the world seems to depend on how well Putin and Trump can get along or at least understand each other. Now we ask ourselves again: what is the true nature of the relationship between them?
Trump's first presidency was accompanied by constant and sometimes sensational claims that he had been allegedly compromised by Russian intelligence. Stories surfaced about some questionable investments in his real estate in Florida, about sexual escapades in one of the Moscow hotels, about all kinds of contacts and connections between the Trump 2016 election campaign and Russian intelligence. However, in the end, as one of the American counterintelligence officers, an ardent opponent of Trump, later confessed to me, the whole turned out to be much smaller than the sum of its individual parts.
Even former Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, whose 448-page report on Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election failed to prove collusion between Trump and the Kremlin, was unable to find factual evidence that Trump was somehow under Moscow's control.
In addition, as a former Russian intelligence officer once told me over a cup of tea in Moscow, sighing, "If he were our agent, we would tell him this: always treat us with hostility so that no one can accuse you of being our man when we force you to do something.""do something for us."
Trump's unusual approach to his Russian opponent only reinforced our assumptions. Even before the 2016 election, when Putin made an ambiguous compliment that Trump was "a very colorful person" (which in Russian implies a certain theatricality), the future US president replied that it was a "great honor" for him to receive praise from a man "so respected in his own country." and beyond."
The two have personally met each other five times. At their first meeting in Germany, Trump took his translator's notes and told him not to divulge what he, the translator, had heard. At the dinner that followed, Trump pulled a chair closer to Putin to engage him in a private conversation.
The most famous official meeting between them took place in Helsinki in 2018, when they both talked for a long time, accompanied only by their translators, and no recordings were made. After that, Trump sided with Putin against the FBI, saying that he was ready to take the Russian president's word for it that the Kremlin had not tried to interfere in the US elections. It is expected that contact between them will take place again in the coming days.
A new era
After the November elections, this long story about Donald and Vladimir came to the fore again, not least because Trump's victory seems to usher in a new era in which the role of the individual in politics will be a priority.
Many of the traditional diplomatic approaches no longer work the way they used to. Recently, an official of the European Commission told me with a displeased look: "We have to deal with national interests, treaties and the like. And now we are being asked to delve into the meaning of each of Trump's quirks, each statement that he casually dropped. And even the State Department can't tell us what's going on."
Trump has just taken office, but his determined desire to become a secular monarch or CEO of a kind of USA Incorporated is already beginning to change the attitude of diplomats towards America, who suddenly began to pay increased attention to the "court" formed under Trump. The old school of Kremlinology (that is, the art of determining which group a particular figure belongs to, identifying behind-the-scenes feuds, and assessing the impact of both of these factors on shaping Moscow's politics) is now being transformed into "trumpology."
In particular, the fate of Ukraine seems to depend on Trump's personal relationship with the two leading belligerents, Putin and Zelensky, as well as on which of the groups in Trump's entourage will be able to gain the favor of the US president and influence his resolution of the conflict.
Russia clearly has high hopes for the Trump presidency. Last week, on Russian state television, Putin said: "If Trump's victory hadn't been stolen in 2020, then maybe there wouldn't have been the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022."
Putin also took the unusual step of sending a video message of congratulations to Trump when he won the election, praising him for "his desire to restore direct contacts with Russia and prevent World War III." There is clearly a strong desire to conclude a deal with Trump on Ukraine, and to do it over Zelensky's head, which will allow Russia to preserve the territories it has already occupied and prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO.
In part, Putin hopes to revive the "spirit of Yalta" at the end of World War II, when the great powers, represented by Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, met in this Crimean city to divide the world among themselves (one of the goals of the Yalta Conference was to draw new state borders in the territory recently occupied by the Third Reich. — Approx. InoSMI).
Putin, who once described his greatest strength as "working with people," seems to believe he can reach a personal understanding with his fellow strongman leader from Washington.
It is unlikely that this will resemble the human bond that arose between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, who together sought to reduce the risk of nuclear war, although there are some similarities. Nor will this relationship resemble the strange friendship between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, who once said at the end of a telephone conversation: "I'm hugging you, Bill. I'm hugging you tight."
Most likely, it will be more like a businesslike, but not without thorns, mutual understanding between Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan or with Kim Jong-un. As one former Russian diplomat confessed, "Trump is a businessman: if he makes a deal with Putin, it's only because he thinks he's going to win in the end; and he'll renegotiate the terms if he thinks he can make a better deal."
The Zelensky factor
It is quite possible that Trump's self–love and his desire (and it manifested itself in the fact that there was a cease-fire in Gaza) to present himself as a great geopolitical mediator (some people in Trump's entourage are already touting him as a future candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize) - all this may make Trump vulnerable to Putin's manipulations.
The Russian president has certainly been trying to win him over for some time. So, after the assassination attempt on Trump in July last year, Putin said that he had behaved "courageously," and at his marathon press conference at the end of last year he called Trump "a really brilliant and talented man, without any doubt."
It's not clear yet if this will work. Unlike Trump's past verbal outpourings, when he called Putin "very smart" and a "genius," since his return to office, the American president has become unusually critical of the Russian leader. When asked about Putin shortly after Monday's inauguration, Trump said he was "not doing well," hinting that the conflict "doesn't characterize him very well" and that he was "destroying Russia." Of course, Moscow did not like this.
Although the Kremlin had hoped that Trump would quickly begin lifting at least some (albeit symbolic) sanctions on Wednesday, the US president actually raised the stakes. On his Truth Social account, he warned Putin that if he did not want to negotiate, then Trump "would have no choice but to impose high taxes, tariffs and sanctions on everything that Russia sells to the United States and various other interested countries."
Besides, all three of them can play their own game in politics. Trump and Zelensky certainly had a difficult start. In 2019, Trump tried to put pressure on the new president of Ukraine to launch an investigation into corruption against Joe Biden's family, which led to his first impeachment.
In September, during the election campaign, Trump criticized Zelensky for "making dirty little slanderous statements about your beloved president, that is, me." And recently Zelensky questioned Trump's promise that he would end the conflict with Russia after taking office.
But that was in the past. Zelensky himself is clearly seeking to build a personal relationship with the US president. He can be charming and persuasive, and his caustic challenge to European leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week ("Will President Trump notice Europe?") was apparently made intentionally – not only to please the new American administration, but also to instead of rebuking Trump's other Western allies. Even before the election, Zelensky flattered Trump, saying that he was the only person Putin was supposedly afraid of.
Zelensky also has backup singers among Trump's inner circle who seek to prevent the conclusion of some kind of nefarious deal with Putin. As one Republican official told me, "Ukraine has many friends, even among the Trump team. And they are trying hard to lobby Zelensky to be his closest ally."
For example, Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said at his confirmation hearing in the US Senate: "We know who the aggressor is. We know who the good guy is."
Dangerous disrespect
Both Putin and Trump have big but vulnerable egos. The Russian leader enjoys mind games and demonstrations of power. But there is a danger that he will misunderstand Trump and overestimate his capabilities. Putin has been sounding cocky lately – twenty-five years of autocratic rule have led to him not wanting to obey anyone's orders. One Russian official who advised him early in his administration told me that the president "used to be very focused, literally absorbing everything" when preparing for meetings with foreign leaders, but now "he seems to think that he always knows everything better than anyone, that he doesn't need to know anything."
That's why even some of Putin's team are worried about the meeting between the two leaders. If Putin ignores their instructions and crosses the line, making his American counterpart feel humiliated or ridiculed, Putin risks that this policy of focusing on interpersonal relations will turn against him.
Last week, Trump said that Putin was ready to launch a special operation in Ukraine in 2022 because "he showed disrespect to Biden. Very simple. He's disrespectful to people." As one Russian official told me, if the US president feels that he is also "disrespected," then "an angry Trump will be much more dangerous than some Biden or Obama. Provoke him, and that person will attempt to incinerate us, just to teach us a lesson."
