Hot on the heels of a major diplomatic victory in Gaza that saw the remaining Israeli hostages released by Hamas, President Donald Trump is looking to repeat his success in a far more challenging arena: The nearly four-year-old Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Trump, who has said he thought this conflict would be the “easiest” to settle, is set to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday in what could be a pivotal visit for Zelensky, who is openly seeking access to more advanced American weaponry that would let his armed forces strike targets deep inside Russia.
The relationship between the two leaders has been replete with conflict dating back to a now-infamous 2019 phone call shortly after Zelensky’s election that ended up leading to Trump’s first of two impeachments after he tried to extort the Ukrainian leader into announcing sham investigations into then-former vice president Joe Biden and his son.
It took another ugly turn in February when Zelensky visited the White House just a month into Trump’s second term to discuss what was supposed to be a mineral rights agreement with the U.S. but ended up in a shouting match after which he was asked to leave.
Relations between them have warmed in recent months, however, as Trump has soured on Putin due to the latter’s habit of attacking civilian targets in Ukraine after assuring Trump he wants to end the war.
The president has often boasted in recent months about his success in brokering solutions to military conflicts, some with extremely long histories — including the decades-old border dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia, a recent spat between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan, and the Israel-Hamas conflict, which was just the latest instance of a conflict dating back to Israel’s founding in 1948.
But the Russia-Ukraine war, which will enter its fourth year in February — or 11th year if starting the clock from the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea — is not like the others he has claimed to have solved.
Ukraine, with support from the United States and Europe, has transformed its armed forces from what was once a tired, Soviet-style army equipped with gear left over from Ukraine’s days as a Soviet republic into a modern fighting force that is adept with the most cutting-edge methods of drone warfare and boasts a range of modern American-built weaponry.
Kyiv’s forces have largely kept Russia contained within an area of the country that has long been contested by Russian-backed separatists, turning the conflict into something akin to the trench warfare that raged across Europe during the First World War more than a century ago.
But Zelensky is hoping that Trump, with a full head of steam after successfully bringing about a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza using America’s considerable leverage over Israel to force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a deal and the threat of further military force to compel Hamas to concur, will take a similar approach to Moscow going forward.
In a social media post on Monday, he explicitly compared Putin and Hamas, writing that the Russian leader “can be forced into peace — just like any other terrorist.”
“Even Hamas is now preparing to release hostages. If that is possible, then Putin can also be forced to restore peace,” he added.
While Trump was able to leverage America’s relationship with Netanyahu’s government to force the Israeli leader to accept a settlement over the objections of several members of his right-wing coalition, the president doesn’t have the same pressure points to work with Putin.
But he does have other ones he can manipulate, economic or otherwise.
European leaders have warned that Moscow is transitioning to a full-time war economy even while it teeters on the brink of economic catastrophe, and the time to strike with harsher financial penalties and sanctions is now.
Yet Trump has thus far refrained from backing a Senate-authored bill to impose severe sanctions on Moscow, and has not yet taken action against the “shadow fleet” of tankers Putin uses to bypass price caps on Russian oil exports — even though he’s threatened to do so if the European Union can completely wean itself off of Russian petroleum products.
The subject of increasing pressure on Putin with sanctions is bound to come up with Zelensky when the Ukrainian leader enters the Oval Office three days from now, as is Zelensky’s desire for American-built Tomahawk cruise missiles that have the range for his forces to strike deep inside Russian territory — including Moscow and beyond.
The two leaders spoke on Sunday before Trump left Washington for Israel, with the American president calling their interaction “a good conversation” in which they discussed “the weapons they need” including more Patriot air-defense missiles.
Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters: “They’d like to have Tomahawks — that’s a step up.”
He said he told Zelensky that he might consult with Moscow before providing such weapons, calling their provision “a new step of aggression.”
The possibility of that move drew condemnation from former Russian president Dimitri Medvedev, who on Monday claimed on Telegram it would be impossible for Russian forces to distinguish between conventionally-armed and nuclear-armed Tomahawks even though the latter weapons were removed from American arsenals years ago.
“One can only hope that this is another empty threat,” he said.
But Trump does not appear to be deterred and threatened to send Ukraine the weapons over Russia’s objections “if this war is not going to get settled.”
“The Tomahawk is a an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that,” he said.
