They say “ambiguity” is a great stance when you are playing poker, or trying to do a business deal, but Donald Trump is playing this line to its absolute limits when it comes to Ukraine.
Trying to fathom what Trump is going to do next is almost impossible. One day he is berating Russian president Vladimir Putin, the next day he is praising him. The same goes for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. These games may keep his followers in the White House happy, but they are a nightmare for the people of Ukraine who have been at war, through no fault of their own, for well over three years.
In Trump’s desperation for a deal with Putin, especially after bringing off a ceasefire in Gaza, he seems to want to rush Ukraine into an unjust peace deal. Trump did not get his coveted Nobel Peace Prize this year, which was announced days after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was signed. He looks hell-bent on getting a medal in 2026.
But Trump’s blinkered and thick-skinned approach misses two key things. First, that Putin is not interested in peace, and secondly, that Zelensky knows that if he gives up Donbas as Putin and Trump insist, it opens the door to Russian forces walking into Kyiv. This would subjugate the whole of Ukraine, which is Putin’s plan today and was his plan in February 2022 when he launched his full-scale invasion.
After what seemed like a far too chummy phone call with Putin last week – and a far too aggressive meeting with Zelensky – Trump has proposed another of his peace-making whistle stop hops across the Atlantic. He’s now set to meet with Putin in the Hungarian capital of Budapest at a yet-to-be announced date. No meeting with Zelensky has been announced.
The irony of meeting Putin in Budapest is not lost on those interested in history. It was here that the US, the UK and Russia in 1994 agreed to protect Ukraine in return for it giving up its stockpile of Soviet-era nuclear weapons. It is unlikely Putin would have invaded in 2022 if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons, as one thing we know about Putin is that he respects strength.
Trump and Putin consider themselves the “big dogs” in this fight, and Ukraine and Europe are yapping terriers to be kicked about. It is time these terriers form a pack, or rather, pact, to protect themselves, because collectively they have the grunt and snarl to see off Russian attack beasts.
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Of course, the easiest way to end the war is to arrest an indicted war criminal as soon as he comes into Nato airspace, or when he lands in Hungary, which is supposed to uphold the direction of the International Criminal Court. I don’t suppose any of those wannabe successors lurking in the shadows of the Kremlin would do much to spring Putin from the Hague.
Sadly, Viktor Orban, Hungary’s leader, is rather like Trump and seems more in the Russian than European camp. The Budapest summit is no doubt another mechanism for Putin to prolong the war, as he is confident that he can outlast Ukraine and its allies and is happy for Russian soldiers to fight to their last drop of blood so that he can achieve the status of modern-day Tsar, which he covets as much as Trump does his peace prize.
When you factor all this in, the prospect of any contours of a deal coming out of the meeting in Budapest is beyond farcical.
But if Trump can see past his admiration for Putin, and put Tomahawks and other weapons into Ukrainian hands, the destruction of the Russian oil economy – which is already causing issues for the Kremlin – is the most likely route to forcing Moscow to the negotiation table in earnest.
Today, this seems farfetched. Nobody is sure which version of Trump will turn up in Hungary: the one that talks tough or the Russia appeaser.
But what is certain is that Europe’s coalition of the willing must start to shift the military dial visibly against Russia. This is the only realistic chance to get Putin to see that the road to peace through a ceasefire is his only viable option.
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