It was one of its main campaign promises. By stopping his “good relationship” with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump had assured that he could end the war in Ukraine in “24 hours.” But six months after his return to the White House, La Paz still seems very far. Russia continues to massively bombard Ukraine, killing many civilians and eating on the east front. At the negotiating table, discussions on a truce remain at a dead point.
The sign of a Trump method failure? Since January 20, the president of the United States has confused kyiv and his allies with his erratic diplomacy and tumultuous exchanges with Vladimir Putin. In this article, BFMTV returns and decipher the successive positions often contradictory to Donald Trump in the war in Ukraine since the beginning of his second mandate.
“Turn the arm” of the Ukrainians
When he returned to the White House, Donald Trump flattens the relations of the United States with kyiv and Moscow. Taking into account the war like that of his predecessor Joe Biden, he refuses to designate Russia as an aggressor. Its goal: put the two fields on the negotiating table.
“His first idea is to lead to an extremely fast peace, without really shameful substantive problems,” Ulrich Bounat, Ukrainian conflict specialist and researcher associated with the group of experts Euro Craiv.
But Ukraine is staggered by the statements of the US administration about the origin of the war, near the Kremlin narrative, and reluctant to negotiate in the same foot with its invader. To fold Kyiv, Donald Trump applies maximum pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Donald Trump chooses an approach that corresponds to the way in which he understands international relations, which only sees as power relations, that is to twist the interlocutor’s arm in which he has the greatest amount of welcoming Ukraine in this case, and to save as much as possible from the two, Russia,” explains Ulrich Bounat.
At the same time, Donald Trump approaches Russia and revives contact with Vladimir Putin. The two men talk to each other on the phone several times, and the delegations of the two countries argue in the Middle East.
When Donald Trump does not collect his phone, it is his special emissary Steve Witkoff who goes to the Kremlin. This former real estate developer, with non -existent diplomatic experience, takes positions close to those of Kremlin, claiming, for example, that “the overwhelming majority of the population” of the Ukrainian regions invaded by Russia “expressed the desire to live under Russian domination.”
Despite this approach with Moscow, negotiations are trampled and the Russian army continues to hit Ukraine. In his social networks, Donald Trump is beginning to bother the Russian president to continue the war.
Threats … Without consequences
“Download” by Russia, Donald Trump binds to Europeans by demanding an unconditional truce, before any discussion about merits. Again threatens Russia with the sanctions. However, when Moscow rejects any truce, nothing happens.
Finally, the US president asked the Russians and Ukrainians to meet to negotiate the conditions for a fire. But the Kremlin dragged the discussions, the camps in their positions and no agreement is concluded. Volodymyr Zelensky accuses Russia “to try to save time” to “continue” his invasion.
For Ulrich Bounat, if Donald Trump refuses to get angry with Moscow, it is so much to preserve his chances of obtaining an agreement as for the ideological proximity to the Kremlin teacher.
“Donald Trump shares Vladimir Putin’s world vision: a world based on strong men, who can do almost everything they want in their close close,” the researcher deciphens. In addition, “he has people like JD Vance or Steve Witkoff who are in a maximum appeasement line with Russia by his side. This necessarily has an influence on him.”
The inflexible Kremlin, Trump is upset
During a second round of negotiations without success in Türkiye, the Russian delegation gives Ukraine a “memorandum” that summarizes the Russian requirements to end the war. Withdrawal of the Ukrainian troops of the four regions invaded by the Russian army, the “international” recognition of the Russian annexations or even stop the deliveries of Western weapons in kyiv: the Kremlin list has not changed since 2022, or has even extended.
“The Kremlin considers what is happening in Ukraine as something existential,” says Ulrich Bounat to explain the immobility of Russian diplomacy. But it is also the absence of American retaliation measures that feed it. “When you have the impression that militarily, it goes as bad as that, and that diplomatically, we do not exert crazy pressure, the incentive to stop or make commitments is non -existent,” said the specialist.
Peace seems more distant than ever, and Ukrainians continue to die under Russian bombs. At the end of May, Donald Trump really seems to lose patience against his Russian counterpart, which he treats with “crazy” that he wants to “continue killing people.”
But the US president inevitably seems to return to his pro-ruse defects. As when he evokes his “enriching” conversation with Vladimir Putin, a few days after his blood blow against the Russian president. In a report of his telephone exchange published in Truth Social Network, the US president seems to be the spokesman for Vladimir Putin and he renounces to recognize that there will be no “immediate peace.”
A month later, the White House gives kyiv at the end of the delivery of certain weapons, he says, preserves the stocks of the Pentagon. It will take new fatal bombings in the Ukrainian capital and a tense attraction with Vladimir Putin for the US president to resolve to take the deliveries of arms.
This time, the Imbroglio could find its roots in stiffness within the Trump administration. According to Politico, it is the influential undersecretary of the Defense Edldrige Colby, who sees in China a greater threat than Russia, which would have made this decision without referring to the president.
Towards a Pro-Kyiv inflection point?
If Donald Trump remains unpredictable, the signing of an economic agreement with kyiv, the multiplication of the invective against Vladimir Putin and the resumption of military aid seems to attract a Pro-Ukrainian turning point in US diplomacy.
According to Financial Times, the US president even asked Volodymyr Zelensky during a phone call if he could “attack” the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
“If Donald Trump undoubtedly shares a part of Vladimir Putin’s beliefs, in the excessive extension of NATO or in his right to have a sphere of influence, he probably thinks that the Russian president is going too far in his bombings,” said Ulrich Bounat.
“The images of the murdered civilians return to him in a Boomerang and become difficult to use for him,” continues the researcher. On July 11, the conservative Tabloid New York Post was exhibited in a photo of a baby murdered in a Russian unmanned airplanes.
Pressing by the Republican camp to address the tone, Donald Trump also mentioned the role of his wife Mélania in a certain awareness of reality. “I went home and told the first lady: ‘I talked to Vladimir [Poutine] Today. We had a great conversation. ‘ And she replied: ‘Ah, yes? Another city has just been beaten, “said the Republican in front of the press.
Donald Trump “humiliated”
But more than the political pressures or their relatives, it is Donald Trump’s wounded ego who could push him against Vladimir Putin. According to the White House advisors mentioned by the Atlantic, the US president felt insulted by the Russian president. “When ignoring Trump’s calls to end the war and intensify the fight, Putin made Trump go through a minor partner in the relationship,” the magazine wrote.
For the Russian chess and opponent champion Garry Kasparov, Donald Trump “can make a very strong statement and decide to help Ukraine, not because he worries about Ukraine, but because he is humiliated.”
On July 14, the US President took 50 days before imposing “secondary” sanctions on the allies and commercial partners of Russia. “If we do not have an agreement within 50 days, it is very simple, [les droits de douane] It will be 100%, “he announced.
After several ultimatums without consequences, will Donald Trump fulfill his promise? The deadline established by the US President has made Kyiv Allies work. For the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, 50 days represents a “very long” duration when innocent civilians die every day. “
Source: BFM TV
