Russia has realized that Trump’s not going to be able to negotiate a peace deal, which means they’ll just keep rolling on the battlefield. From Strategic Culture at strategic-culture.su
Russia will have to end the war militarily on its terms for a lasting peace.
U.S. President Trump’s toying with the idea of supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles to the Kiev regime is not a good look. Not from the point of view of it causing a threat to Russia. It doesn’t. But rather, it shows that Trump is not serious about ending the NATO proxy war against Russia.
Thus, Russia will have to win the war militarily on the battlefield and present its terms for peace as the outright victor. Any chance of a negotiated settlement to the conflict with the Trump administration now seems remote.
When Trump welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, our weekly editorial headlined: “Trump-Putin summit a breakthrough for peace, but the U.S. needs to end the war.”
The meeting in Anchorage was indeed a breakthrough for potential diplomacy, rather than the usual dead-end Western hostility towards Russia, and Trump appeared to understand the Russian position of addressing the root causes of the conflict.
However, two months on, Trump has shown no impetus to “end the war.” He could have done this by ending all U.S. military support to the Kiev regime. On the contrary, in the weeks since the Alaska summit, Trump has announced the supply of Extended Range Attack Missiles (ERAMs) to Ukraine. The ERAMs with a range of 500 km exceed what the Biden administration had offered. Trump approved the move because European NATO members would pay for the munitions, a cynical calculation that does not sound like a principled peacemaker.
So, Trump is not ending the war. He is maneuvering to get the Europeans to pay for it, that’s all. Trump’s problem is that he expected a quick, flashy peace deal with Russia to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine – and to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize for being such a brilliant dealmaker. Such a Hollywood ending!
In reality, Trump and his administration have evidently no understanding or will to address the root causes of the proxy war. Their rhetoric acknowledges that it is a proxy war, but Trump and his aides are vacant when it comes to conducting serious negotiations about NATO’s historic aggression, NATO’s betrayal of post-Cold War promises, Russia’s strategic security concerns, and the rights of the Russian people faced with a NATO-weaponized genocidal Neo-Nazi regime on their borders. Trump’s superficial approach is betrayed by his erratic attitude and increasingly churlish comments about Putin and Russia.
This has been known for a few months now.