Trump had a "trump" against Putin but he did not use it: Media details

Journalist and analyst Robert Kagan believes that in the long run, Russian President Vladimir Putin is weak, but now the situation is playing in his favor because Ukraine is in an even more vulnerable position. In his article, Kagan points out that in the first 100 days as US President Donald Trump has not reached any concessions from the Russian leader. Moreover, he actually demonstrated his willingness to meet the Kremlin, and is even threatening to leave peace talks.

According to journalists, this testifies both the specifics of the new American leadership and the change in the nature of international policy as a whole. According to The Atlantic material, a new agreement on Ukraine looks so unilateral in favor of Russia that the Trump administration is forced to artificially invent "concessions" by Putin. As an example, Trump stated that Putin allegedly agreed not to capture the whole territory of Ukraine.

However, according to experts, this is not a real concession - on the contrary, this is the result of the Kremlin, although it is not able to achieve it at the moment. In parallel, Ukraine is called for concessions - in particular, to abandon part of its territory in exchange for safety promises in the future. And Russia, which theoretically should be interested in the agreement, does not even agree to such conditions.

According to the author, this confirms that Putin did not seek end of war from the very beginning, and Trump did not even try to find out. "Putin is weak in the long run, but now he is betting that Ukraine will break before his own resources are exhausted," Kagan summarizes. The analyst believes that in order to change the course of events, the Russian leader should see that Donald Trump really intends to support Ukraine in the long run.

As Mark Tisen said from The Washington Post a month ago: "Russia is incredibly weak, both economically and military, which means that in these negotiations, Trump holds all cards in his hands. " His sleeve was this main trump card, but the US president did not use it. So now Trump's calls to Putin to end the war, journalists perceive more as a pleasure to stop humiliating him in front of the world.

"If Putin really wanted partnerships from the United States, he at least made a gesture to meet as everyone expected. Instead, he responded to Trump's surrender with a rocket stroke for civilian purposes," the journalists said. Putin probably believes that Trump wants to improve relations with the Russian Federation that any humiliation is tolerated.

The American peace proposal does not currently contain a direct language about the US assistance to Ukraine after the end of the war, as well as no discussion of the number of the Ukrainian army. It is only about cooperation in the mineral resource agreement. Putin and his negotiators clearly made it clear that they wanted the demilitarization of Ukraine and the termination of all supplies of weapons and economic assistance to partners, refusing to enter NATO.

The plan leaves open the possibility of the presence of European peacekeepers, if possible without US support. However, Ukraine has a "plan B" if the Trump agreement does not work. In particular, the production of shock drones-Kamikadze, which is already felt on the battlefield, has increased significantly. We will remind, Putin announced a truce for Victory Day for certain hours.