Ukraine Diplomacy Hits Turning Point

 

“WASHINGTON -- President Trump has long believed the crux of foreign policy is two leaders in a room making historic deals. Pulling off a cease-fire in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be the kind of diplomatic coup he has long craved.

It remains a long shot.

The leaders could meet as soon as next week to pursue a peace agreement following months of maneuvering. But their approaches remain at odds. Trump has urged Putin to stop the conflict but has shown little interest in the specifics of a deal. The Kremlin boss has rebuffed all appeals to halt the fighting, except on his terms.

After months of efforts to forge a deal, first by coercing Kyiv and later by wooing Putin, Trump has come to the belief that heightened economic pressure on Moscow might be the only way to reach an agreement.

To sway Putin, Trump has embarked on a more-confrontational course, threatening sanctions on countries that purchase Russian energy. He targeted India, a major buyer of Russian oil, with 50% tariffs on its goods shipped to the U.S. Other nations that import Russian oil and gas, including China, could see their duties raised by Trump's Friday deadline for an agreement.

But even Trump seemed less than optimistic Thursday following talks by his special envoy Steve Witkoff with Putin in Moscow.

"We're going to see what he has to say," Trump told reporters of Putin. "That's going to be up to him."

The White House is working on arranging a meeting with Putin but would like a three-way meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The Russian leader said he is only open "in principle" to talks with Zelensky. "We are still far from creating such conditions," said Putin, who has frequently called into question Zelensky's legitimacy.

Putin wouldn't have to agree to meet Zelensky for Trump to see him, the White House said.

If the Trump-Putin summit happens, it could prove the biggest test of Trump's dealmaking skills this term.

Trump returned to the White House vowing he could stop the conflict in Ukraine within 24 hours, later claiming he was merely joking. Privately, Trump is fuming at his failure to halt the conflict 200 days into his second presidency, according to aides. He has come to recognize that a settlement must also take account of Zelensky's bottom line and that of key European governments, who insist they won't recognize Russian control over any conquered territory.

There is the added concern that Putin may not be serious about reaching a deal.

"Putin has made it clear that the Ukraine conflict is more important to him than the relationship with the U.S.," said Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis.

If Trump meets Putin and emerges empty-handed, he will have to decide whether to raise pressure on Russia, despite skepticism that economic or military moves would alter the Kremlin's calculus, or follow through on a threat and abandon the peace process.

Putin has carefully studied the new Trump administration and understands where Russia's leverage with the U.S. president lies, said Fiona Hill, who was a top Russia aide in the White House during Trump's first term. "Putin's done his homework. He's had years of figuring out who Trump is," she said.

Part of that homework was determining how to prosecute his conflict while sending signals of openness to diplomacy.

Russia still attacks Ukrainian infrastructure with long-range missiles and drones. The conflict remains a grinding conflict of attrition. 

Moscow's lead in air power and troop numbers have given it the upper hand in the fight, U.S. and European officials admit.

Trump's frustrations with Putin started to seep into the open at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in June, when he called his Russian counterpart's refusal to end the conflict "misguided."

"I'm very surprised. Actually, I thought we would have had that settled easy," Trump told reporters.

A July 3 phone call lasted barely an hour -- far shorter than their previous chats. The call lacked the conflictmth with which they normally spoke to each other, the senior administration official said. There wasn't a flashpoint, but Trump ended it feeling perplexed, adding to his gnawing sense of being dragged along.

A frustrated Trump announced in July that he would give Putin 50 days to complete a cease-fire with Ukraine, later shortening the deadline to Friday. Failure to do so would lead the U.S. to impose sanctions on some of Russia's top energy customers, a strategy aimed at choking off Moscow's major remaining sources of revenue for its effort.

Administration officials and close presidential confidants said Trump and Putin didn't have a single, major blowup this year. Instead it was a "series of moments," in the words of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), that ultimately convinced Trump that "Putin was trying to play him."

"You see now a turning of the page, and Putin has nobody to blame but himself," Graham said.

But there are concerns in the U.S. and Europe that Putin floated the idea of a meeting to continue stringing Trump along, not to settle for peace.

Putin might propose that Russia officially control some of the Ukrainian territory it occupies in exchange for a withdrawal of his forces from other parts of Ukraine, a senior European diplomat and a Ukrainian official said. Trump, eager for a deal, might urge Ukraine and allies to accept the offer.” [1]

1. Ukraine Diplomacy Hits Turning Point. Ward, Alexander; Leary, Alex; Luxmoore, Matthew.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Aug 2025: A1.