{"id":27823,"date":"2025-05-19T23:29:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T23:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=27823"},"modified":"2025-05-19T23:29:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T23:29:43","slug":"has-donald-trump-abandoned-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=27823","title":{"rendered":"Has Donald Trump abandoned Ukraine?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For Donald Trump, Monday\u2019s call with Vladimir Putin evoked the hope of a bright future of \u201clargescale TRADE\u201d between Russia and the US, \u201cwhen this catastrophic \u2018bloodbath\u2019 is over\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yuri Ushakov, the Russian leader\u2019s foreign policy adviser, said the tone of the two-hour conversation was so friendly that neither president wanted to be the first to put down the phone. <\/p>\n

To the Ukrainians and allies in Europe it felt like a betrayal.<\/p>\n

It was not only that the US president did not appear to exert any pressure on Russia to achieve a ceasefire. According to his readout of the call, Trump also made clear that the US was bowing out as a mediator in efforts to end the war<\/a>, leaving Moscow and Kyiv to figure things out themselves.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of the consequences. \u201cIt is crucial for all of us that the United States does not distance itself from the talks and the pursuit of peace, because the only one who benefits from that is Putin,\u201d he said in a statement after speaking with Trump.<\/p>\n

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Zelenskyy, centre, meets Ukraine officials on Sunday in Kyiv<\/span> \u00a9 Ukrainian Presidential Press Service\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For observers, it was a turning point after more than three years of conflict. A president who promised to end the Ukraine war on day one of his second term appeared to be washing his hands of the effort and leaving Ukraine to the mercy of its invader. The call confirmed the Europeans\u2019 worst fears: that the US president, seduced by Putin\u2019s blandishments, was ready to pivot to Moscow and sell out Kyiv.<\/p>\n

Trump even had a suggestion for who could replace the US as mediator: Pope Leo XIV. \u201cThe Vatican\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. has stated that it would be very interested in hosting negotiations,\u201d he wrote on Truth Social. <\/p>\n

In a call to European leaders after he had spoken to Putin, Trump signalled not only that he was disengaging, but that he also did not intend to apply additional pressure on Moscow while the bilateral talks between Russia<\/a> and Ukraine were under way, according to two people briefed on the conversation. <\/p>\n

That represented a volte-face for Trump. Just over a week ago, he had joined other western leaders in threatening to impose new punitive measures on Russia if it failed to implement an immediate ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Trump himself admitted to journalists later on Monday that he had not even reiterated his earlier demands of Putin to cease his attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis call with Trump was a win for Putin,\u201d said Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine now at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. \u201cHe made clear a ceasefire won\u2019t happen any time soon, so Russia can continue the war. And still no additional sanctions will be applied.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and Putin appeared to have agreed that Russia and Ukraine would hold direct talks, continuing the negotiations in Istanbul<\/a> from last Friday. <\/p>\n

Putin said Russia was ready to work with Ukraine on a \u201cmemorandum about the possible future peace agreement\u201d. That would include the \u201cprinciples on which a peace agreement would be based\u201d and a \u201cpossible ceasefire for a certain amount of time, if certain agreements are reached\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet there was bafflement about what Putin was talking about.<\/p>\n

A senior Ukrainian official familiar with the calls said of the memorandum idea that\u00a0\u201cnobody knows what it is, what\u2019s the reason for it [and] why it matters\u201d. Zelenskyy himself told reporters late on Monday that the memorandum proposal was \u201cunknown\u201d to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russians will conduct low-level conversations, exchange various documents, and meanwhile keep on fighting,\u201d said Bill Taylor, who served as the US ambassador to Ukraine from 2006-09. \u201cHow much longer will Trump put up with all this stalling?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Vladimir<\/picture>
Putin speaks to the media last week at the Kremlin <\/span> \u00a9 Gavriil Grigorov\/Sputnik\/Kremlin\/Pool\/EPA-EFE\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The US desire to disengage has been flagged for weeks, by Trump himself but also by secretary of state Marco Rubio and vice-president JD Vance, who have repeatedly expressed frustration with Russia and Ukraine in equal measure. Vance told reporters on Monday that the US might ultimately have to say: \u201cThis is not our war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to try to end it, but if we can\u2019t end it, we\u2019re eventually going to say, \u2018You know what? That was worth a try, but we\u2019re not doing it any more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump reiterated that when he told reporters in the White House that something was \u201cgoing to happen\u201d to end the war. \u201cAnd if it doesn\u2019t, I just back away and they\u2019re going to have to keep going. This was a European situation, and should have remained a European situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some experts see Trump\u2019s desire for disengagement as understandable. \u201cEach side\u2019s approach has been to make Trump mad at the other side, and that was destructive in its essence,\u201d said Peter Slezkine of the Stimson Center think-tank. \u201cIf he can force the two sides to talk to each other and take himself out of the picture, that might be necessary to get things moving.\u201d <\/p>\n

But Trump now seemed more interested in rapprochement with Moscow than in resolving the war, others said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point Trump seems to see normalisation of Russia-US relations as an end in itself,\u201d said Andrew Weiss, vice-president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. \u201cEverything else is subordinated to that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s apparent willingness to procrastinate could reflect Russia\u2019s confidence about the military progress of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where it has stepped up offensive operations along large sections of the front line. <\/p>\n

A Ukrainian military spokesman said \u201cheavy battles\u201d were raging around the strategic city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, and north of nearby Toretsk. A highway that serves as a crucial logistical hub was coming under regular drone attack, threatening Ukraine\u2019s operations in the area, soldiers said.<\/p>\n

\"Volodymyr<\/picture>
Zelenskyy meets Trump at the White House in February <\/span> \u00a9 Jim Lo Scalazo\/Pool\/EPA-EFE\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

DeepState, a Ukrainian analytical group close to the military, called the situation \u201cunfavourable\u201d for Kyiv\u2019s forces and said Russian troops were \u201cpushing through positions and approaching the administrative border of Donetsk region\u201d \u2014 one of the areas Russia unilaterally annexed in 2022 yet does not fully control.<\/p>\n

DeepState\u2019s map, where it tracks changes on the front line, shows the Russians less than 5km from that border where the fighting is most intense.<\/p>\n

Capturing the entire eastern Donetsk region \u2014 along with neighbouring Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the other three areas it annexed in 2022 \u2014 remains a key military objective for Moscow. Its army has suffered heavy losses in pursuit of this goal. In talks with Ukrainian officials in Turkey last week, Russia made any ceasefire conditional on Kyiv withdrawing all its forces from all four regions.<\/p>\n