Trump still can’t resist Putin Russia’s oil wealth beckons

Donald Trump is spending this week on a tour of East Asia, and after recent frustrations, you can understand why he’d want to think about any foreign problem but Ukraine. First there was that Budapest summit with Vladimir Putin, much vaunted before being abruptly and indefinitely postponed. Then there was the muddle over long-range Tomahawk missiles, with the President denying Kyiv’s request for the weapons despite repeatedly floating the idea. Then, there was Trump’s latest shouting match with Volodymyr Zelensky, urging him to accept Russia’s conditions on ending the war and wrecking months of warmer relations.

It’s tempting to blame these disruptions on Trump’s famously capricious style — but that would be a mistake. For the real shift of recent times came not from the Commander in Chief himself, but from a phone call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, which finally led White House officials to realise that Russia’s position on Ukraine remains as unyielding and uncompromising as ever. First in Alaska, and now ahead of Budapest, Trump has twice learned a truth that Ukrainians have always known — that Putin is not interested in concessions so long as the price of continuing the war is lower than the cost of ending it.

As a result, the Trump administration duly announced sanctions against Russian oil firms Lukoil and Rosneft, the first against Russia during his second term in office. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to see this face-saving move as the end of his efforts to force a solution to the conflict that he can put his name on. After all, the energy giants have already been under American sanctions since 2014, and though some key buyers have started to back off from Russian oil and gas, the long-term efficacy of such sanctions largely depends on how aggressively the Trump administration enforces them.

That’s especially true when it comes to taking robust measures against secondary countries. And certainly, Trump’s record of upholding Biden-era sanctions against Russia leaves a lot to be desired. What all this means is that Trump’s latest moves won’t be nearly enough to sway Putin — and unless he is willing to go all-in on support for Ukraine, which is unlikely, the White House will eventually join forces with Putin to end the war on his terms, leaving Ukraine with only the hapless Europeans for solace.

Despite his on-off embrace of Ukraine, what is easily and repeatedly observable is that, sooner or later, Trump always comes crawling back to Putin’s kennel, and after years of habit, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Though he understands that he has once again been played by his Russian counterpart, Trump also knows that he may be reaching the end of his window to bag his long-coveted peace deal — his ninth, apparently — which would open the door to the trade deals and investments he has discussed with Putin almost since his inauguration.

He may levy sanctions today, in short, but as his bile-filled meeting with Zelensky implies, Trump is ultimately likely to return to his default approach and force the Ukrainians to abandon the last battlefield advantages they have. Jaded by his own peace process, yet still driven by his ego, Trump’s move against Russia is best understood as a façade, a reaction that belies a much deeper, more cynical awareness: that only by forcing Ukraine to capitulate will Trump get what he wants.

What exactly is that? Beyond the prospect of a long-term economic bargain with Moscow, Trump stressed after his meeting with Zelensky that the best-case scenario would be a quick deal to end the fighting. That would allow him to parade a personal triumph, while leaving it to Putin, Zelensky, and the Europeans to figure out the details of a proper lasting peace. “Let it be cut the way it is,” he said aboard Air Force One, referring to Donetsk Oblast and other parts of Ukraine that Russia currently occupies. “They can negotiate something later on down the line.” Now that Putin has made it clear this isn’t an option, Trump has found himself trapped — unable to secure a quick ceasefire, but still determined to secure Russian wealth.

In hindsight, Trump’s entire Russia-Ukraine saga has been leading up to this moment. Following the dud that was the Alaska summit in August, Trump tried on an all-in-for-Ukraine approach for size, offering Kyiv perhaps the most valuable asset in his toolkit — American intelligence support for long-range drone strikes against Russian energy sites. Though Trump’s threats to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine garnered much of the headlines, it was these strikes, which reduced Russia’s oil refining capabilities by 20% by September and slashed its oil export revenues, that ultimately played a larger role in pushing Putin to indulge the Budapest summit. For all its bluster, Russia would have likely weathered the limited Tomahawk strikes that Ukraine could have sent its way — but another few months of near-daily drone strikes might have been economically fatal.

Trump’s pro-Ukraine gambit was enough to bring Putin back to the negotiating table, but not enough to get him to actually negotiate. For that reason alone, the Commander-in-Chief is unlikely to “waste” more time on trying to meaningfully change Putin’s calculus in the long run. It may take another cycle of fruitlessly trying to get Putin to negotiate, but Trump will eventually return to what was always in his eyes a much more effective method for securing his goals: strong-arming Ukraine. Zelensky already got a taste of this during his meeting with Trump on Friday, when the US President told him that he should give in to Putin’s demands or get “destroyed”.

While Trump settled on advocating for a ceasefire along the current frontlines, there’s no guarantee he still sees this as a viable position, especially following the collapse of the Budapest summit. If he truly believes he can get Zelensky to surrender the Donbas, which could well be the case with Steve Witkoff constantly in his ear, the President may let his impulses get the better of him and embrace it as the fastest path to victory. Once he does, he will almost certainly cut off the intelligence support that has been so instrumental in Ukraine’s success against Russia’s energy sector, and possibly cancel Ukraine-destined arms shipments to Nato allies, leaving the country fully at the mercy of Putin’s war machine.

With a shaken Europe at his back, Nato chief Mark Rutte jetted off to Washington to meet with Trump this week, and though he downplayed concerns about the US President’s position on Ukraine, it’s clear the trip was an attempt at damage control. Europe, Kyiv, and Nato are now trying their best to band together and leverage the Trump-whispering techniques they’ve honed over the last eight months. Moving forward, they may try to sway Trump with economic and trade incentives of their own. Yet having already handed much of their bargaining power over to America during previous charm offensives, in the form of mineral deals, trade agreements, and security investment kickbacks, they will have few bones left for him to gnaw on.

Moreover, European Nato leaders are aware that they must pick their battles carefully — and with a new era of grey-zone Russian drone incursions, provocations, and acts of sabotage already upon them, they may well choose to cut their losses and place their bets on American support for Europe rather than continuing to stick their necks out for Ukraine. And with Russia increasingly casting Europe as the spoilers of Trump’s grand plans, including the Budapest summit, they may soon find their influence in an increasingly pro-Russian White House dropping precipitously.

What of the future? The prospect of bilateral trade with Russia in rare earths and oil would certainly make Trump happy. But the price of such a deal would involve more than dollars: what Putin wants most from America is not just a free hand to impose his will on Ukraine, but an opportunity to halt and even roll back Nato’s expansion in Eastern Europe, refashion Russia’s old neo-imperial sphere of influence, and reach a new compact with the US on what our looming multipolar world might look like.

Whether Trump goes along with this plan remains to be seen, but imposing a dubious peace now opens the door for a whole range of geopolitical scenarios that at present seem unthinkable. As for Europe, which has spent an enormous amount of energy flattering Trump to get him onside, the President’s eventual turn to the Kremlin will force them into their own generational reckoning. And while they may initially redouble their efforts to support Ukraine, and win Trump back once more, it’s likely that, caught between Russia and the US, Europe may just cast Ukraine aside, as they scramble to find a place in this new, Machiavellian world order.

In the meantime, Zelensky is hoping that Trump’s ego won’t let him fall back into Putin’s lap. Ukraine has just conducted several successful strikes against a Russian gas processing plant, likely with American support, and he and the Europeans are doing their best to project calm, buoyed by the sanctions announcement. But as this chaotic week draws to a close, he and the Europeans will be dreading what comes next. Trumpology is an art, not a science, and a move in one direction is hardly ever a sure-fire bet for what comes next. Though the President may feel his self-worth bruised by Putin today, it is only a matter of time before his deeper self-interest wins out once more. Despite the wishful thinking of Europe and Ukraine’s supporters, The Art of the Deal has no chapter on righteous empathy.

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