Trump wants to end the war fast. Russia has its own timetable.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. President Trump’s high-speed effort to end the war in Ukraine is on a collision course with Russia’s negotiating tactics and President Vladimir Putin’s goals in the conflict. After the first meeting in years between U.S.
and Russian officials in Riyadh, the Kremlin is already preparing the ground for interminable talks ahead. Putin tried to temper expectations last week about negotiations reaching a quick conclusion: “It will take some time. How much time it will take, I am not ready to answer now." For Russia, talks with the U.S.
are a victory in themselves, because they help end the isolation imposed upon Moscow by the Biden administration, which had refused to engage with the Kremlin after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Kremlin has said it isn’t interested in a simple cease-fire because it is convinced the Ukrainians could use a pause in fighting to rearm. Instead, Putin wants to deal with what he calls “the root causes" of the conflict, which he has said include Ukraine’s NATO aspirations and an anti-Russian government in Kyiv.
Russian forces have been steadily gaining ground on the front line in Ukraine, and Moscow has a long history of using a grinding military advance to improve its position in negotiations. It is a strategy Moscow has employed from Syria to the talks at Yalta during World War II. In recent days, U.S.
policy appeared to be shifting decisively in Russia’s favor, with Trump blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war and calling him a dictator. But translating that shift into agreements at the negotiation table will be challenging. Putin has aims that extend far beyond the territorial gains his forces have made in Ukraine.
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