President Donald Trump this week said he is ‘very’ optimistic that Ukraine and Russia will enter into some sort of deal in the coming days, but security experts are still sounding the alarm that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want peace.
A feeling of geopolitical whiplash is surrounding Washington after the Trump administration last week said it would abandon peace efforts if a ceasefire cannot be secured, though days later Trump said there is a ‘very good chance’ a deal will be reached this week.
The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about what it would mean should the U.S. walk away from one of Trump’s top campaign trail issues: ending the war in Ukraine.
The administration also has not clarified if Washington would take retaliatory measures against Putin, as Trump threatened to do last month.
‘Simply because Trump hasn’t announced any consequences yet does not mean that he doesn’t plan on taking some anti-Russia measures,’ former DIA intelligence officer and Russia expert Rebekah Koffler told Fox News Digital. ‘Trump almost certainly intends for his economic warfare against China to serve as an example to Putin how far Trump is willing to go to compel his adversaries to his will.’
‘But unlike the China case, there’s no similar dependence between the U.S. and Russia. Trump’s decision on Russia is much more complicated, more risky and requires more thought,’ she added. ‘He may or may not take draconian economic steps against Russia, as Putin may take devastating, non-kinetic actions against the U.S.
‘It’s Trump’s risk tolerance vs. Putin’s now,’ Koffler said. ‘And both like to win and both have risk tolerance way above average.’
The White House did not respond to questions by Fox News Digital on whether the U.S. would still aid Ukraine in some capacity, particularly given recent restrictions on military aid Trump has implemented on Kyiv, like refusing to sell Patriot missiles previously used to defend civilian populations from Russian strikes and that cost $1.5 billion a piece.
‘If we want to be a global superpower, and we want to deter aggression, not with U.S. troops on the ground, but in general, to deter aggression because it is good for our national security, then we should continue to support Ukraine,’ former CIA Moscow Station Chief Dan Hoffman told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s a tiny percentage of the Department of Defense budget.’
‘The return on investment is pretty high,’ he added, referring to the $66.5 billion in military assistance Washington has provided Kyiv since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, compared to the $841.4 billion defense budget congressionally approved for 2024 alone, a figure which Trump has pushed to increase.
A Ukrainian delegation was set to meet with Trump administration officials in London on Wednesday alongside other European partners, including representatives from the U.K., France and Germany.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff is reportedly set to return to Moscow this week to continue negotiations with Russian officials, though the Kremlin has not indicated they are anywhere near agreeing to ceasefire terms, let alone a peace deal.
A spokesperson for Putin, Dmitry Peskov, on Tuesday reportedly said the issue of Russia’s invasion was too ‘complex’ to achieve a quick fix and warned against rushing into a deal.
‘It is not worth setting any rigid time frames and trying to get a settlement, a viable settlement, in a short time frame,’ he said.
The Kremlin’s position has given credence to repeated warnings from security experts that Putin is not interested in securing a peace deal with Ukraine.
‘There’s no indication that Putin wants to stop the war,’ Hoffman said. ‘That isn’t surprising. Because for a war to end, somebody has to win or both sides have to be so tired they can’t continue to fight.
‘Russia is the invader, so you have to stop them in order to have an end of the war,’ he added. ‘The one consistent thing here is Putin is continuing to fight. His objective is to overthrow the government in Ukraine. He’s going to keep fighting until he feels like he has accomplished that goal or he can’t fight anymore.’
Koffler echoed Hoffman’s position: ‘Putin will be pursuing the same strategy regardless of Trump’s actions; that is continuing the war of attrition until Ukraine capitulates or is completely destroyed and the government collapses.’
‘Putin would like to string Trump along and will continue to try doing so,’ she added.
A report by the Moscow Times on Tuesday cited sources close to Putin and said the Kremlin chief is looking to reorder the global ‘spheres of influence’ by negotiating leverage points between the U.S. and adversaries like Iran and North Korea.
The article claimed that Putin would attempt to get Trump to either force a less-than-desirable deal for Ukraine or potentially stop the U.S. from aiding Kyiv by proposing personally enticing deals, like allowing Trump to build a hotel in Moscow, and geopolitical wins, like securing a nuclear agreement with Iran and a ‘peace deal’ in Ukraine.
Fox News Digital could not verify the report’s claims, but Koffler agreed it could be a strategy that Putin is looking to employ as the U.S. pushes deals across Europe and the Middle East.
‘He could promise Trump not to share certain sensitive technologies to these two [nations],’ Koffler said. ‘And he could convince Iran not to operationalize and weaponize its nuclear program in exchange for Trump’s promise not to target Iran’s nuclear facilities in a kinetic strike and to lift sanctions from Russia.
‘The important aspect of all of this is to give these adversaries face-saving opportunities, which is not a strong point for the U.S. style of diplomacy,’ Koffler said. ‘But Putin’s ability to convince Trump and Trump’s decision calculus are two different things.’