Putin, Trump, and Zelenskiy: Three incompatible speeds for negotiating peace

No one wants the war in Ukraine to last 100 years, said renowned American political scientist George Friedman at a conference in Kyiv on October 16. But the protagonists are racing at different speeds to end it. Speeds that are incompatible.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that he has the upper hand in the diplomatic arena. The postponement of the summit that U.S. President Donald Trump announced with Putin in Budapest for this October is the latest example of Russia’s strategy: to bog down negotiations and maintain a long-term conflict that is primarily about attrition on the battlefield.

Trump’s strategy is to end the conflict at all costs and claim credit for what he considers to be the ninth war — according to his personal count — in which he has successfully intervened as a mediator. But the Kremlin made it clear that the possible meeting in Hungary requires more preparatory work. The Republican admitted Tuesday that his rush to stage the summit had clashed with Moscow’s maximalist proposals, and that he, too, does not want “a useless meeting.” The U.S. leader confirmed Thursday that he was canceling the summit but hopes to hold it in the future.

The White House’s expected preparatory meeting this week between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also postponed. Lavrov reiterated Tuesday that Russia is not in favor of a ceasefire because it “would not bring lasting peace” and because it “would leave a vast part of Ukraine under the control of a Nazi regime.” Kremlin propaganda portrays Ukraine as a country controlled by a neo-fascist elite. Russia’s constitution unilaterally included the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia as part of its federation in 2022. It illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Trump’s interests have not only clashed with Putin’s, but also with those of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The Republican has demonstrated that any option that aims to end the war as quickly as possible is valid, whether it favors Moscow’s position (that Ukraine surrender sovereignty over the occupied territories) or Kyiv’s (that an unconditional ceasefire be declared before any negotiations).

Last Friday, Trump pressured Zelenskiy at the White House to agree to negotiate the distribution of territories. That same day, the leaders of the major European powers came to Ukraine’s aid in public statements. The European stance materialized this Tuesday in a statement in which the major EU states and the United Kingdom asked Trump to support the need to freeze the front lines with a ceasefire before Ukraine and Russia sit down to negotiate peace: “We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations,” the statement said.

European alignment with Kyiv will be reaffirmed this Thursday in Brussels, where Zelenskiy will participate in the European Council meeting, and on Friday, at a summit of Ukraine’s military allies in London.

An engine with less horsepower

Zelenskiy is aware that the Ukrainian military engine has less horsepower than Moscow’s; that is, fewer resources to fight. That’s why he’s been repeating for months that the war should be halted before the end of the year. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have heroically managed to limit the Russian advance, but that advance continues. The Ukrainian arms industry has increased its production almost tenfold during the war, as Volodymyr Vlasiuk, an economist and government advisor, explained to a group of journalists last week. But this is not enough to resist, which is why European and American support is essential, especially with more technologically advanced weapons and anti-aircraft systems.

The problem is that this assistance is faltering, especially due to Trump’s policy of cutting off all military aid to Ukraine unless it is first purchased by NATO allies. This has meant that monthly arms transfers to the Ukrainian army have fallen by 43% compared to the first half of the year. The White House also refuses to provide Kyiv with long-range Tomahawk missiles, arguing that it would be an unnecessary escalation of tensions with Moscow.

Something similar happened last August when Trump received Putin with full honors in Alaska, convinced that the summit would be a decisive step toward peace. At that meeting, the Russian autocrat managed to halt U.S. plans to impose new sanctions on the Russian economy, promised Trump bilateral trade agreements, and reset the clock on ending the war.

This Washington appeasement strategy is incompatible with Ukraine’s position, which believes peace is only possible if it is given much stronger defense guarantees than those obtained so far, such as the Tomahawk missiles. One of Trump’s campaign promises in the 2024 presidential election was to end aid to Kyiv, considering it wasteful.

Sanctions against Russia

In Trump’s unpredictable logic of abruptly moving closer to or further away from one side or the other, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday night that the White House would impose new sanctions against Russia, the first under the Republican presidency. Trump, in an appearance alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, confirmed that his administration, after months of waiting, will finally introduce sanctions against the Russian oil industry, the main source of income for the Kremlin’s war machine. “Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere,” Trump explained.

“I hope Putin will be reasonable. Hopefully, Zelenskiy will be reasonable, too. You know, it takes two to tango, as they say,” Trump added. “These two people hate each other.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Wednesday that Putin wants to hold the summit with Trump in Hungary, but that the meeting requires more time to prepare. Peskov asserted that both Kyiv and European powers are trying to “interfere” with the U.S. position to derail the meeting.

“I have serious doubts that the Budapest meeting will actually take place, as it would not bring us any closer to peace,” Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the Telegraf newspaper. “Putin will never accept the possibility of a ceasefire because it gives Ukraine a chance to survive and develop. He will only accept our capitulation.”

Despite Kyiv’s desire for Trump to distance himself from Putin, prominent Ukrainian analysts also assume that a new summit between the Russian and American leaders will eventually occur. “My intuition tells me that Trump’s next meeting with Putin will take place, either in Budapest or somewhere else,” Volodymyr Gorbach, director of the Institute for the Transformation of North Eurasia, wrote in an analysis on Tuesday. “Putin understands and feels that Trump needs him much more than he needs Trump. That is why he negotiates, bargains, dodges him again and again, and, just by doing this, he is buying time.”

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