President Donald Trump faces challenges balancing US relations with Russia and Ukraine amid ongoing war tensions. Photo / Getty Images
United States President Donald Trump is caught between a rock and a hard place.
The rock, which is vast and apparently unable to move, is Russia. The hard place is Ukraine, and the European countries standing resolutely beside it.
Trump had promised to settle the war within 24 hours of taking office, later extending that to 100 days.
But it has now been some 317 days since his second inauguration, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows no signs of slowing.
The US President has flirted with both punishing Moscow and Kyiv for obstructing his attempts to settle the almost four-year war.
With Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner returning to Washington without a deal, a decision will have to be made over what comes next from an American perspective.
The pending choice will cause angst in European capitals and Moscow, as politicians and officials wait for Trump’s answer.
Rumours had swirled that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was primed to meet the US peace envoys after their talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian President, however, slipped out of Dublin’s international airport unannounced just after 10pm local time on Tuesday night, heading home via Poland.
There were no words from Kushner, the US President’s son-in-law, or Witkoff, his golfing partner and peace negotiator, after more than five hours nestled inside the Kremlin.
Instead, we heard from Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s long-time foreign policy aide, who claimed no compromise had been reached during their marathon talks.
“Peace is no closer, but also no further away,” Ushakov said.
“The President made no secret of our critical and even negative attitude towards some of the proposals,” he added, hinting there had been no progress on the thorniest issues, which include territorial concessions and Ukraine’s Nato membership prospects.
Last month, Russia and the US agreed to a 28-point peace plan, which France said amounted to a “capitulation” for Ukraine.
It included halving the size of the Ukrainian Army, banning the country from joining Nato and handing Putin most of Russia’s frozen assets, as well as full ownership over the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
In the week before the Moscow talks, US and Ukrainian officials worked on a new framework more palatable to Kyiv.
This new document, however, elicited little to no common ground between Russia’s maximalist demands and Ukraine’s desire for “peace without humiliation”.
The most logical outcome of any discussions in the White House is the emergence of a “stick” to beat one of the sides involved in the war.
Despite criticism from Ukraine’s allies, the US President has not shied away from using that stick to bring Kyiv to heel. But, having done the same to Moscow, there is no guessing what course of action he might choose.
On one hand, the White House could revisit an existing strategy – and one favoured by Ukraine and Europe – to ramp up the pressure on Putin to negotiate in good faith.
The Russian President only came back to the table when it appeared Trump was prepared to sell long-range Tomahawk missiles, capable of striking Moscow, to Zelenskyy.
Around the same time, Washington also launched the first new sanctions – targeting Russia’s oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil – since Joe Biden left office.
The stick worked.
As we now know from leaked telephone discussions between Witkoff and Ushakov, it was at this time that Putin decided it was time to come back to the table and proposed a conversation with Trump.
The sanctions were still enforced.
But a day after the Russian and American presidents had their phone call in October, Trump told Zelenskyy, who was on a visit to the White House, that he was not prepared to sell Tomahawks to Ukraine.
It appeared that Putin’s promise to work on a peace deal was sufficient for preventing what could be very difficult for Moscow.
In the coming days, Ukraine and its European allies will quietly be urging Trump to revisit this strategy in the hope of increasing pressure on the Kremlin to consider the latest peace plan.
The US President, however, is a man known to be impatient.
He’s already more than 200 days late on his promise to end the war, one he claims wouldn’t have started if Biden hadn’t beaten him in the 2020 presidential election.
There is a real possibility that Trump will decide to walk away from the centre of the peace talks and wash his hands of the war to focus on bigger domestic priorities like immigration or foreign policy challenges such as China and Venezuela.
Shortly after the leak of a 28-point plan, drawn up by Russia and the US, Trump had put a Thanksgiving deadline on Ukraine accepting its terms.
If Kyiv didn’t play ball, Washington would stop sharing intelligence and halt weapons shipments.
In the past, similar decisions by the White House, or even just a lack of funds, have proven crippling for Ukraine’s forces fighting on the front lines.
Both Ukraine and Europe will be hoping that Trump does not repeat this course of action, meaning continental leaders will be left to shoulder the burden of supporting Kyiv.
It would lead to a slow bleed for Ukraine, and prompt tough choices over whether to continue fighting a war of national survival or accept a shoddy peace, leaving the country prone to another invasion.
There is no indication that Trump will throw Ukraine under the bus.
But European leaders, especially Nato’s Mark Rutte, will be acutely aware that they will need yet another campaign of flattery and to prove they’re willing to put extra cash in the White House coffers through purchases of US kit for Ukraine.
Trump already has one foot out of the door when it comes to American support for Ukraine.
Backers of his Make America Great Again mantra argue that there is no need to take the final step if profits are still being made.
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