Following a two-hour phone call on May 19 between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump announced that both Ukraine and Russia would “immediately” commence negotiations aimed at achieving a ceasefire.
The president expressed optimism about Putin’s intentions, stating his belief that the Russian leader was ready for peace and has “had enough” of the conflict.
However, subsequent reports revealed major sticking points that will likely prove difficult for the Trump administration to achieve its goals.
Not only did Trump tell European leaders in a subsequent call that Putin believes he is winning the war and therefore not ready to end it, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also publicly stated that Moscow is not interested in a ceasefire.
Nonetheless, Trump proposed this month that future talks between Russia and Ukraine could be hosted by the Vatican, and while he once again implied that he was willing to walk away from the “European situation” entirely, he also indicated that he would not step away from brokering talks, adding that he had a red line in his head that he is not ready to reveal.
So, is Trump being played?
Some analysts and Western officials say yes.
Writing for Atlantic Council, chief editor of Business Ukraine Magazine Peter Dickinson portrayed the U.S. president as naively optimistic or willfully blind, arguing that Putin is manipulating the peace process to weaken Ukraine and the West.
Dickinson pointed to comments by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who claimed that Putin is “clearly playing for time” and that he is “not really interested in peace.” Dickinson also noted that while Ukraine has agreed to an unconditional ceasefire and signaled readiness to make major territorial concessions, Russia continues to reject a ceasefire while proposing new conditions of its own.
“Putin’s representatives during last week’s negotiations in Istanbul sought to emphasize Moscow’s unwillingness to compromise, calling on Kyiv to officially cede four entire provinces to Russia including a number of major Ukrainian cities that the Kremlin has so far been unable to seize militarily. If Ukraine refuses to do so, they warned, Russia will increase its demands to include six Ukrainian provinces,” Dickinson added.
While Trump certainly isn’t alone in believing that a deal can still be made, Western leaders and officials are almost universally skeptical of his optimism that Putin will come to the table and stop making maximalist demands.
In a sense, Putin may well be “playing” Trump in that he knows what advantages he holds and how much he can demand. But does that mean a deal will never happen?
Or might it simply be the case that Putin knows, like Trump, that Ukraine doesn’t have the leverage it needs to demand much more than merely retaining control of territories that Putin did not identify as targets when he first announced the “special military operation” in 2022?
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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Swamplaw Yankee
May 23, 2025 at 4:52 pm
Yankee or British PR: the historical Potemkin Village depends on the panels of fact or fiction that you are switched into.
Ukraine is the fitting x-y location for this analogy. The millions of Ukraine intelligence experts were only exceeded by the billions of 9-11 intelligence experts the day after 9-11. The USA will still not reveal how extensively the Putin FSB + the Xi triads protected the Bin Ladin funded HQ operation in South Parkdale in Toronto. Therefore, in the DNI of the USA , there is no “public” 9-11 HQ.
The same here: The British play their own cards. Everyone knows the British betrayed the 3 Baltic nations to the Stalin death machine pre-WW2. Everyone knows the British refused to “play Trump Cards” with Stalin pre-WW2. Stalin, in analogy, begged the French + British to cut the deck. The British refused and then covered up their boo-boo. Only because the French had a French position do we know now why the Ukrainians and Poles were later butchered in WW2.
Today, the world knows that the Obama-Biden-Democrat Cabal in 2014 greenlighted the unilateral free, no-cost giveaway of the Ukrainian land mass, Crimea and the Black/Azov Seas one to the prime, vile Cold War enemy of the WEST: Putin. The O-B-D betrayal of the WEST was malicious, covert as there was zero consultation with USA allies inside Europe, EU and NATO.
The proof: there is zero research/documentation that any Ally of the USA received any consultation on the “Benedict Arnold” traitor scale treason. The O-B-D sold out the WEST. Or, till further data/research surfaces, the USA takes the whole betrayal hit!
The malicious O-B-D cabal of 2014 facilitated years of glib traitor talk, refusing any early movement of USA military hardware for the Ukrainian state. The O-B-D cabal happily facilitated the, then current, Epstein disease, that they knew was like the Russian genetic desire to kidnap + transfer human trafficked children out of Ukraine into orc muscovite elite pedophile control.
Todays Card left for the POTUS. The MAGA POTUS made a public demand that Putin make pre-payment of $10,000,000 in gold bullion per each and every kidnapped child as compensation and reparation immediately: before any more scam Peace talk, before more slimy slithering with unilateral shame shows by Whackooff Weirdoes demanding closeness to Putin, the master child trafficker.
The MAGA POTUS Trump must make that public demand of the Putin muscovite elite state. The test is if the moral strength resides in Trump to make this world wide statement.
Can the World leader of the WEST not make this demand for Victory of the WEST, Victory for Ukraine? -30-