President Donald Trump never stays still for very long. He makes decisions, only to delay their implementation. He listens to pretty much everybody before he settles on a course of action, only to change his mind at the last minute. Whether it’s withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria during his first term or settling on a tariff regime in his second, Trump is an unpredictable chief executive who seems to relish his power to keep everyone on edge.
It was therefore only a matter of time before U.S. policy on Ukraine followed a similar trajectory. Many believed Trump wasn’t as malleable on the war in Ukraine as he was on other issues. Trump, after all, spent his entire presidential campaign lambasting Joe Biden’s Ukraine policy as ineffective, dangerously escalatory and a waste of American taxpayer money. He blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for milking Uncle Sam for tens of billions of dollars, all in service of a war the Ukrainians couldn’t win. Russian President Vladimir Putin was described as somebody who was not only smart but also interested in ending a war he started. And who could forget Trump’s bold proclamation, uttered on countless occasions, that he would be able to settle the war in a day?
The first half of Trump’s first year wasn’t a particularly happy time for Zelenskyy either. Trump and his foreign policy advisers made it abundantly clear early on that Kyiv wouldn’t be stringing Washington along anymore. U.S. policy transitioned from bankrolling the Ukrainians in perpetuity to ending the war in a decent political settlement — even if this required the White House to get far tougher on Zelenskyy than Biden was willing to be. It didn’t take long before Trump showed Zelenskyy just how tough he was willing to get, browbeating him in front of the cameras at the Oval Office in February. Days later, the Trump administration paused military and intelligence support to Kyiv in what critics slammed as vindictive but was in reality a coercive move to get Zelenskyy to cooperate with a diplomatic process Trump was trying to kick-start.
That highly public humiliation in February was a moment of truth for Zelenskyy, who treated it as an opportunity to learn how not to deal with Trump in the future. Since then, the Ukrainian president has been relatively restrained in his behavior toward Trump. The two have met at the Vatican and chatted on the phone on numerous occasions, with Zelenskyy always reminding Trump how thankful he is for U.S. support. The praise has earned him some brownie points with the White House.
Ultimately, however, it’s Putin’s conduct over the last few months that has prompted Trump’s shift. Despite the Russian army sustaining hundreds of thousands of casualties for territorial gains that would be extremely difficult to decipher on a map, Putin still genuinely believes he can win the war and achieve all of the goals he outlined before the fighting started — full control of the four provinces Russian forces partially occupy; closing NATO’s door to Ukrainian membership; capping the size and capacity of the Ukrainian army; and changing the government in Kyiv to Moscow’s liking.
Given Putin’s intransigence, the U.S.-led peace process the Trump administration has attempted to spark hasn’t achieved anything other than several rounds of prisoner releases between Russia and Ukraine. Every proposal the Americans have tabled has either been rejected by the Kremlin outright or stonewalled as Russian negotiators introduce a slew of technical questions about implementation. The immediate 30-day ceasefire Washington tried to impose in March died a quick death, as did a short 30-day ceasefire in the Black Sea that was designed to introduce some goodwill into the process. Moscow continued to peg adherence to a ceasefire with U.S. sanctions relief and a cessation of U.S. military aid to Kyiv. Shortly thereafter, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there was only so much patience the United States had and pointed out that the time was fast approaching when Washington would simply wash its hands of the conflict.
In the months since, the pace of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine has gotten only more aggressive. The Russians are attempting to saturate Ukrainian air defenses by unleashing hundreds upon hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles across multiple targets throughout the country every day, with civilians paying the biggest price. Some of those bombardments have come immediately after Putin talked with Trump on the phone in what can only be categorized as a deliberate slap in the face. Based on his latest comments, this is certainly how Trump is viewing things. Putin, Trump told reporters this past weekend, “really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then bombs everybody in the evening.”
The price Putin now has to pay will come in the form of more U.S. Patriot missile interceptors for Ukraine, more U.S. offensive weapons in the hands of Ukrainian troops trying to hold their defenses and a bigger U.S. sanctions regime on the Russian economy, in which the largest buyers of Russian oil (India and China) will now risk 100% tariffs on exports to the United States.
Europe, Ukraine and many influential foreign policy thinkers in Washington are obviously thrilled with Trump’s change of course. Yet the bigger question is whether these policy changes will do anything to change Putin’s strategic calculus on the war or make him more amenable to softening his maximalist position. Given the importance Putin places on winning the war for Russia’s overall security, none of us should bet the farm on it.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
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