The first direct contact between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations led to nothing. The top officials did not come to the meeting location and later awkwardly tried to explain why they acted this way. Since then, a stream of contradictory statements and chaotic movements has continued, both around the Russo-Ukrainian war and far beyond its borders.
Negotiations Opened
Since the days of commemorating the 80th anniversary of the anti-Hitler coalition’s victory over Nazi Germany, there has been a flurry of activity surrounding the Russo-Ukrainian war. On May 10, a landmark meeting in Kyiv between British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed that Europe (at least the mentioned countries — “the coalition of the willing”) had awakened and intended to act decisively in defense of Ukraine and lead U.S. President Donald Trump, who is trying to resist and distance himself from European affairs. Indeed, in Kyiv, an effective ultimatum was issued to the Russian dictator Putin: if he does not announce a 30-day ceasefire “starting Monday,” the Europeans, together with the United States, will impose hellish sanctions on the Russian Federation. It seemed that the European colleagues had managed to persuade Trump to join.
But suddenly, Putin made an unexpected proposal: “to meet in Istanbul,” either with Trump or with the Ukrainian delegation — he created ambiguity on purpose. This proposal was picked up by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “I will come to Turkey and wait for you, Putin, and you will not be able to find a reason to avoid the meeting...” One would think the Russian dictator was trapped? Indeed! He got out of it in a way only he could: he simply did not show up, spitting in the face not only of his Ukrainian adversary but also of his supposed American friend. Instead, he sent a delegation to Istanbul headed by... his cultural advisor V. Medinsky — not even a second- but a third-tier official, a fierce enemy of Ukraine; included in the delegation were second- and third-ranking deputies of the heads of Russia’s intelligence agencies. Medinsky represented Putin’s attitude toward these negotiations: they were supposedly a “continuation” of the negotiations that took place in Istanbul at the end of April 2022, which were also headed by Medinsky on the Russian side. At that time, the delegations decided nothing — and could not have — as the Russian side was trying to impose capitulation on Ukraine, despite having suffered a shameful defeat near Kyiv.
So, in Istanbul on May 16, for the first time since that single meeting at the beginning of the full-scale war, the Ukrainian and Russian delegations looked each other in the eyes. Three years had passed, countless events had occurred, and yet Russia’s demands had barely changed — only now, in addition to the previous demands, they were asking for four Ukrainian regions, and if not, according to Medinsky, they would demand “six or seven.” Where they would find the resources for this — considering they’ve been trying to capture Pokrovsk for a year — the delegation, of course, did not explain.
Clearly, such negotiations could not result in anything (this was evident even before they began). Only with Turkey’s mediation was it possible to agree on a large-scale prisoner exchange — 1,000 for 1,000.
And what about Trump? Had he imposed the hellish sanctions as agreed with the Europeans, he would have effectively admitted to the whole world — and to his voters — that Mr. Pu had “elegantly,” in the classic KGB style, duped him. Moreover, Trump was contemplating major business deals with Russia, so imposing sanctions on it was entirely illogical for him. Thus, he resorted to his usual tactic: “playing dumb.” As in, “Why should Pu have come to Istanbul if I wasn’t there? And why should I, if he wasn’t there?” (I’m quoting almost verbatim — this statement by the 47th President of the United States will surely go down in history.) And in general, “no one there can resolve anything until Putin and I meet face to face.” The 47th President’s cherished dream — to repeat a meeting with the Russian dictator after their sole encounter in Helsinki in 2017 — now seemed close at hand... (However, every U.S. president has traditionally marked the beginning of their term with a meeting with their Russian counterpart and, sooner or later, learned through personal experience that doing business with him was impossible — why should Trump be the exception? Everyone wants to earn their own bruises from dealing with him.)
Trump announced he would hold a phone call with Putin, which he did on May 19. The U.S. President and the Russian dictator spoke for two hours. What they agreed on, of course, was not disclosed (aside from vague phrases in official press releases), but one can infer it from the events that followed.
War Against the Backdrop of Talk About Peace
Naturally, no ceasefire took place; it seems this “unconditional” requirement dropped off the agenda of the U.S. President’s mediation efforts. Russian officials continue to voice new “conditions” daily, which in essence are merely variations of old demands — behind which the intent to destroy Ukraine as an independent state is clearly visible.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced something entirely new — things he had not expressed during his election campaign. First, Trump himself hinted that he might recognize Crimea as Russian de jure (the special declaration by his administration during his first term in 2018, which stated that the U.S. would “never recognize Russia’s occupation of Crimea,” issued by the State Department, has now been completely forgotten). After the uproar over this statement, he supposedly reiterated that Crimea is Ukrainian.
Second, if no effective steps toward a ceasefire are taken, his administration will entirely withdraw from mediating in this “conflict” and shift its focus to “more pressing” issues.
In the meantime, the war has become even more brutal — hundreds of drones and dozens of ballistic missiles are striking Ukrainian cities, killing dozens of civilians and leaving ever more Ukrainians maimed. During Biden’s presidency, the Russians at least somewhat refrained from striking Kyiv; now, attacks on the capital occur almost daily.
All records were broken between May 24–26, when the U.S. observes Memorial Day, honoring those who died in all wars. For three consecutive nights, Russian missiles and drones struck nearly all Ukrainian cities. Videos of peaceful homes in a village near Kyiv being completely demolished circulated around the world, once again bringing the Russo-Ukrainian war to the front pages. Even among Trump’s own party members, there was a rising murmur of dissatisfaction with his appeasement policy toward Putin.
Even Trump himself seemed to lose patience at this point. “I’ve known him \[Putin] for a long time, but something’s happened to him. He’s completely lost his mind!” Trump wrote after the latest brutal airstrikes. Even more striking was Trump’s second post, which some commentators called a “confession”: “What is he doing? He knows that if it weren’t for me, Russia would’ve been in serious trouble! He’s playing with fire!”
That same day, Russian stock markets reacted to Trump’s posts, plunging as if in response to one of his trademark trade wars.
After these statements, German Chancellor Merz officially announced that his country, along with the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, is lifting all restrictions on Ukraine regarding its ability to strike military targets inside Russia. On May 28 in Berlin, Zelensky and Merz signed an agreement under which Germany will invest in the production of long-range weapons on Ukrainian territory and purchase its output to provide financial incentives for Ukraine to produce its own weapons, which can be used without restrictions. Germany has allocated €5 billion for Ukraine’s military-industrial complex. Merz stated that future German arms supplies to Ukraine will be classified, thus not disclosing whether Germany will provide Taurus missiles.
In effect, with its demonstratively brutal strikes on civilian targets, Russia outplayed itself, prompting the war to enter a new and even more dangerous phase—for Russia itself.
Having realized the repercussions, Putin requested a “second round” of negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, to be mediated by Trump. Trump once again postponed the imposition of “hellish” sanctions: “I’ll know whether he’s playing me or not in a week or two,” said the 47th President of the United States.
Trump’s approach to both the Russian dictator and the trade war with the EU seems to follow the same pattern—or rather, the same lack of one: one day, he threatens with sky-high sanctions (or tariffs), tanking the markets, and the next day he postpones those steps as if nothing happened.
It appears that neither he nor his entourage is capable of calculating the consequences of such behavior—nor are they averse to throwing Europe under the feet of the Russian dictator. “Make America Great Again”?!
Is distrust’toward European allies rooted in history?
Trump and his officials hinted at plans to withdraw from European affairs multiple times during his campaign. Their main complaint against their European counterparts is that they “exploit the U.S.” while doing nothing for their own security. Yet neither Trump nor his close associates ever mentioned the only time in history that NATO’s Article 5 was officially invoked: after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when all NATO members came to the aid of the U.S. in its declared “war on international terrorism” (how that war was conducted is another question entirely).
Trump considers himself a “deal-maker” (though whether this is true is now highly debatable), not a geopolitical strategist—let alone a values-driven politician. Meanwhile, the EU, the UK, and the Scandinavian countries remain committed supporters of the international value system forged from the unparalleled suffering Europe endured in the 20th century—a system that ensured the prosperity of the Euro-Atlantic civilization for nearly 80 years. This system may be in crisis and undergoing transformation, but it is far from destroyed and, according to today’s European leaders, still capable of regulating international relations.
Alex Rougande, a PhD student at Columbia University, shows in Newsweek, through an in-depth analysis of U.S.-Europe relations, that the cracks in the transatlantic alliance are not new. Besides the well-known tensions during the two World Wars, Rougande presents a telling historical episode: the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956.
“In 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, previously controlled by the Suez Canal Company, itself dominated by France and the UK. Fearing disruption to Red Sea shipping, Britain and France secretly planned military action in coordination with Israel. But President Eisenhower, worried that Egypt might align with the Soviet Union, backed Nasser and pressured his allies to withdraw, allowing Egypt to retain control of the canal and reducing British and French influence in the Middle East.”
This episode marked a turning point, not only in the divergence of paths between Europe and the U.S., but also within Europe itself: Britain moved closer to the U.S. in its foreign policy coordination, while France, by contrast, distanced itself and asserted its “strategic independence,” as Rougande puts it.
Under Trump, these cracks deepened. This was due not only to disagreements over “imbalances” in defense spending but also to systemic differences.
“The idea that Western Europe is freeloading on America’s defense apparatus gained traction in the Republican Party after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. Reagan-era conservatives like Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell staunchly defended America’s $183 billion investment in Ukraine’s defense. But other Republicans, like J.D. Vance, urged Europe to take the lead, so the U.S. could refocus its attention elsewhere. While this debate has shaped U.S.-Europe relations for the past three years, other ideological, cultural, and historical forces have also shifted the relationship from Reagan-era warmth to Trump-era frostiness,” Rougande writes.
Claims about Europe “freeloading” are overstated and misdirected. Europe did not deliberately exploit the U.S.; reduced defense spending was a broader trend across the Euro-Atlantic world, including the U.S., after what appeared to be the end of the Cold War.
Moreover, I must emphasize: the preference for “trade over war,” in general and particularly with Russia, was a core principle of this civilization until Putin’s brazen violation of its norms in 2014 (in truth, it started in 1999, but few paid attention then, and the “war on terror” actually helped the Russian ghoul consolidate power).
Rougande provides data:
“According to the World Bank, EU military spending as a percentage of GDP has declined since the early 1960s. The steepest drop—from 2.6% to 1.3%—occurred between 1987 and 2014, and spending began rising only in 2019. America also spent less between 1986 and 2001, but after 9/11, spending rose from 3.1% to 4.9% in 2010, then declined again to 3.4%.”
“Given the Trump administration’s perception of the EU and its leaders as part of a ‘liberal world order,’ hostility toward the region may only intensify,” Rougande concludes.
As if to confirm this, Trump suddenly declared on May 23 that he would impose 50% tariffs on EU imports starting June 1—even though the 3-month delay on the tariffs only expires July 9. This announcement came despite the U.S. having its credit rating downgraded on May 16, and U.S. stock markets crashing again after the new tariffs were announced. I began to suspect: could this be a “deal-maker’s” response to the Romanian election results, where voters rejected a far-right Trumpist and chose a pro-European, pro-Ukraine candidate instead? In the eyes of American Trumpists, this might signal that EU voters are turning away from Trumpism, just as it appeared poised for a comeback.
Finally, let us not forget the illusion harbored by some in Trump’s circle (and perhaps by Trump himself)—that Putin’s Russia can be pulled closer to the U.S. and away from China. Though numerous political scientists have demonstrated the futility of this belief, it has yet to fully dissipate.
The Greatness of America — or “America First”?
However, even among Republicans, warnings about the danger of U.S. disengagement from Europe are growing louder.
This view is shared, for example, by Clifford May, founder of the non-governmental Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank established after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (in an interview with Radio Free Europe correspondent Todd Prince).
Although, in Prince’s opinion, it is a good thing that due to Trump’s actions and the war unleashed by Putin in Europe there is already, as he puts it, “a redistribution of responsibility for joint defense toward greater balance” between the U.S. and its European allies, still, if the U.S. withdraws from Europe, it will lose its status as a great power.
“There is a certain tension — at least it seems that way to me — between the slogans ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again.’ To be ‘great again,’ America must be a leader. And it cannot be a leader if it yields to adversaries like Communist China, which [President] Xi Jinping clearly aims for,” Prince quotes May as saying.
The interview emphasizes the danger of failing to recognize that NATO — and, consequently, the United States — is not merely opposing Russia, but confronting an “axis of evil.”
“Despite ideological differences — the Chinese and North Korean forms of communism, Islamic theocracy in Iran, and neo-imperialism in Russia — [May] rejects the notion that their cooperation is merely opportunistic.
China, North Korea, and Iran are materially supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine with missiles, drones, and other weapons systems. Pyongyang has even sent more than 11,000 troops to assist, while Russia, in turn, may offer China and North Korea sensitive submarine technologies in exchange, according to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Paparo.
Meanwhile, all four countries are accelerating the buildup of their military capacities, particularly in missile production, and as a result, the United States is no longer safe from attack. May argues that unless Washington and its European allies increase defense spending, they risk strategic decline.”
Selling U.S.-made weapons to Ukraine will benefit the United States, May emphasizes. “It will support our factories, strengthen our defense-industrial base, and ensure that Putin can’t simply regroup and attack again a few years down the road.”
May warns that the threat of a Russian attack on the Suwałki Gap is real.
Putin “may attempt to create a land corridor to Kaliningrad — the Russian exclave separated by NATO members Poland and Lithuania — just as he did with Crimea.
According to May, such a scenario would pose an existential test for NATO.
‘Do we fight for a road through southern Lithuania? If not, NATO collapses,’ he said.”
How much this concerns Trump and his supporters remains unclear, as the majority of Americans are still inclined toward a values-based system and committed to their allies. This is evidenced, in particular, by the growing internal divisions within the Republican Party over Trump’s personal attitude toward the Russian dictator. At present, 81 out of 100 senators — from both parties — are ready to support a bill on tougher sanctions against Russia. For now, they are waiting to see whether the occupant of the White House matures to the realization of the necessity of their implementation.
Trump’s Middle East Tour – Abandoning Israel?
In addition to the complete uncertainty surrounding Ukraine, political analysts were surprised by yet another sharp turn in Trump’s foreign policy: his visit to three Gulf countries and the striking absence of a stop in Israel.
Beyond the almost openly demonstrative disregard for the closest strategic ally, this tour sharply shifted the focus of U.S. influence in the Middle East from geopolitics to openly business-driven, economic deals with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar — deals made largely without regard for Israel’s security interests or, to a significant extent, even U.S. security.
In Riyadh, on May 13, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Donald Trump signed an arms deal worth $142 billion. “According to a White House statement, the agreement was described as ‘the largest defense cooperation deal ever signed by Washington.’ The previous U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration had unsuccessfully tried to reach a similar defense pact with Riyadh as part of a broader arrangement that would have included normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. However, now both parties appear to have forgotten about Israel’s interests. Donald Trump has since called Prince Mohammed bin Salman ‘an incredible person,’ adding that the bond between their two countries is now ‘stronger than ever,’” reports Aleksandr Dubrovsky for Radio Liberty (Russian service). notes Алєксандр Дубровський на радіо «Свобода» (рос. редакція).
Trump also reached an agreement with the Saudis on increasing oil production, which will, of course, reduce oil prices. Whether this will impact Putin remains to be seen.
Equally substantial mutual investments were outlined in agreements with Qatar and the UAE. In the Emirates, in particular, the parties signed an agreement to create a large international artificial intelligence center.
In contrast to the icy relations with European leaders, Trump basked in Eastern hospitality. Undeniably, he achieved mutually beneficial economic relations between the mentioned countries and the United States — but at what cost?
In Qatar, for instance, Trump secured the release of only one of the 21 remaining hostages still alive who were abducted by Hamas in Israel on the infamous day of October 7, 2023 — U.S.-Israeli citizen Idan Alexander. What awaits the rest of the hostages, how the war between Israel and Hamas will end — all of that was left out of the picture. Worse still: in Qatar, Trump received as a gift a luxurious palace-like aircraft worth $400 million. It was formalized as an official gift to the U.S. government and will be used as an official presidential aircraft — case closed, no longer considered a bribe.
Trump also held a highly controversial meeting in Saudi Arabia with Ahmed al-Sharaa, the acting president of Syria. In the recent past, he was affiliated with al-Qaeda, though his group has reportedly severed ties with it. Still, whether he is genuinely building a pro-Western state in Syria — albeit not a democratic one (this is the East, after all) — remains highly uncertain. He appears to be aligning with Turkey, but to what extent, and what kind of internal order is being established in modern Syria, are major unanswered questions. According to numerous reports, the country is once again on the brink of a renewed civil war.
But could American investments keep the numerous factions in Syria from succumbing to the temptation of settling scores through armed conflict?
“White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that during his meeting with al-Sharaa, Trump urged him to establish diplomatic relations with Israel and to continue the fight against terrorism. Al-Sharaa, in turn, told Trump he would welcome American investments in Syria’s oil and gas industry,” notes Dubrovsky.
Will these strictly business relations with the U.S. finally sever Syria’s ties to Russia? And to China? Again — uncertainty.
Trump made an attempt to apply the old principle to the Middle East: “where there is trade, there is no war.” It is already clear that Putin does not subscribe to this notion. Whether the principle will work in relations with the Arab world remains to be seen. Whether it will harm Israel or push Netanyahu into Putin’s arms is also yet to be seen.
One must also consider historical examples. The principle of commercial gain as a substitute for militant ideologies — without clearly formulated demands for building a societal structure compatible with the West — was already attempted by the U.S. in the 1990s toward both Russia and China. The consequences are clear. Having exploited the benefits of economic cooperation, both countries returned to aggression toward their well-meaning partners. Could the same happen with the Arab monarchies?
Challenges and Opportunities for Ukraine
Thus, under Trump, not only domestic but also foreign policy more and more resembles Brownian motion, with the ultimate goal of dismantling the system of international law and replacing it with a disorderly web of isolated trade and business deals. This policy, especially toward Europe, presents serious challenges for Ukraine.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Trump may withdraw from his self-declared role as a mediator in the Russia–Ukraine war — a direction in which Putin is nudging him. Whether the U.S. will abandon Ukraine — and, therefore, Europe — by cutting off arms supplies remains an open question. It’s possible Trump might sell American weapons to Ukraine, to be paid for by European allies — but this is still unclear. His relationships with fellow Republicans in Congress and the sentiments among his voters may play a decisive role.
And yet, Trump’s Middle East tour led me to an unusual idea — let me share it as a hypothesis. Ukraine already has some relations with the Arab monarchies, particularly in humanitarian matters. Why not strike business deals with them? Not on the scale of the U.S., of course, but smaller agreements would still be beneficial — for example, in the field of weaponry?
Such agreements, in the context of Trump’s emerging new world order, could open additional opportunities for Ukraine — complementing its cooperation with Europe and even the U.S. itself.
After all, in today’s world, Ukraine must master the art perfected by the founder of the modern independent Ukrainian state, Leonid Kravchuk: maneuvering between the raindrops — even when the rain is pouring in a solid downpour.
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