POLITICO: It is not Ukraine – Trump converge with Putin on broader geopolitical issues

Pic.: gzeromedia.com

Trump and his crew of special envoys, family members and presidential pals seem keener to converge with Russia on broader geopolitical issues than really press Putin hard on Ukraine, writes POLITICO.

The Kremlin’s read-out from the call was long on the idea of a broad Washington-Moscow reset — on topics ranging from economic cooperation to ice hockey — and short on anything that looked like a meaningful peace deal for Ukrainians.

In a sign that a real breakthrough is a remote prospect, Russia stuck firmly to its maximalist guns on demanding an end to military aid and intelligence to Kyiv, while wanting a fix to the “root causes” of the war — Kremlin shorthand for eviscerating democracy in Ukraine and thwarting the country’s political trajectory toward NATO and the EU.

The Trump camp is showing it is all too ready to go along with Putin as he purposely mixes discrete stages of the Ukraine negotiations, changing the sequencing either to ensure any final settlement is firmly in Russia’s favor or to avoid acceding to a full ceasefire altogether.

The Russian leader and his top aides have been emphatically outlining their red lines for a peace deal over the past weeks — conditions that would, in effect, rip the state of Ukraine to shreds. They want guarantees Ukraine will never join NATO; that it will remain geopolitically neutral and unable to command its own fate, with severe limitations on weapons. Moscow also wants Crimea and the four eastern oblasts they claim as part of the Russian Federation to be internationally recognized as such. And they’ve ruled out the deployment of European troops to monitor any peace deal that’s agreed.

Rather than wait for formal peace talks, the Kremlin is trying to cajole agreement on its red lines now, holding the ceasefire proposal hostage without having to formally reject it — a move that would risk Trump’s wrath. Trump has promised more sanctions against Moscow if Putin doesn’t commit to a peace deal but, for now at least, he’s allowing the Russian president to slip off the hook and set the tempo.

Watching this play out, some commentators argue Putin is dithering, playing for time and unable to make up his mind. But it can also be said that he is merely dipping into a playbook he’s used before. Much like he did with American negotiators over Syria, he’s forcing his interlocutors deeper into a labyrinth of conditions and “root causes,” seeking to wear them down and manage to secure his main goals.

In flipping the negotiation process, Putin is getting a helping hand from Team Trump.

Trump and his special envoy Steven Witkoff have already been discussing the terms of the settlement in order to try to get the ceasefire deal, while Trump and Putin have been talking about “land,” “power plants” and “dividing up certain assets” before any “official” peace talks.

Before speaking with Putin this week, Trump boasted on his Truth Social media platform that “many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to.”

That’s news to Ukraine. Trump notionally agreeing to Putin’s terms about land and Ukraine’s assets is forcing Kyiv into a position of either rolling over and accepting what the two leaders have privately agreed or rejecting the pre-packaged deal.

If Ukraine were to object to being presented with a fait accompli, Putin can simply blame Kyiv for any breakdown in negotiations, which would feed into Trump’s predisposition to identify Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the villain.

Team Trump has already made its disdain for Zelenskyy patently clear. It was on public display during the ugly clash in the Oval Office in February. And it has also been made obvious behind-the-scenes, with the secret talks between members of Trump’s entourage and Zelenskyy’s domestic political rivals.

Those talks were part of a U.S. bid to muster support for early elections — which they’re convinced Zelenskyy would lose, despite current opinion polls indicating otherwise. And according to three Ukrainian lawmakers and a Republican foreign policy expert, all granted anonymity to speak freely, the back-channeling involved Trump’s son Don Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, controversial conservative talk-show host Tucker Carlson and Witkoff — the latter being the only one who has any official role.

“They see Zelenskyy as an impediment,” the Republican foreign policy expert said. “How do you undercut Zelenskyy and make him more compliant? Well, you engage his political adversaries, and you show him that the United States has other Ukrainian partners and other options.”

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