There are tentative indications that President Donald Trump might finally be waking up to Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s attempts to manipulate him. Speaking to NBC News on Sunday, Trump said he was “very angry, pissed off” over Putin’s questioning of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky‘s authority as a leader.
This rhetorical shift might be notable. Until now, Trump has been highly deferential to Putin in his efforts to persuade the Russian leader to negotiate an end to his war on Ukraine. In contrast, Trump has heaped public and private pressure on Zelensky. The contrast in Trump’s treatment of Zelensky and Putin reflects his antipathy for the sometimes arrogant Ukrainian leader and his tendency to both fear and trust Putin too much. It seems, however, that Trump might now be recognizing that Putin is not as honest a negotiating partner as he once believed.
Beyond his criticisms of Zelensky, Putin’s key challenge to Trump has been his slow-rolling acceptance of a temporary, trust-building ceasefire accord already agreed by Ukraine. Instead, Putin has been attempting to extract further concessions from Trump in return for a deal. The Russian leader has also openly disrespected Trump by escalating his missile and drone attacks on Ukraine just as Trump attempts to secure a ceasefire.
There are other notable examples of the former KGB intelligence officer’s duplicity. On Monday, for example, Putin issued orders to conscript another 160,000 Russian men for his war effort. This is the largest conscription order since the war began. It hardly indicates Putin’s desire to placate Trump.
All of this explains why Trump is now warning Putin that if he continues to play games, he will impose secondary sanctions on China, India, and Turkey over their purchases of Russian oil and gas. As I noted earlier this month, “Those secondary sanctions would devastate the Russian economy by hammering its only export sector and source of foreign capital. His statements of absolute confidence aside, Putin can ill afford new and severe economic strains amid key goods shortages and inflation rates running at 10%.”
The challenge for Trump is that unless he actually imposes new sanctions or pressure points on Putin, the Russian president will continue to believe he can whisper sweet words of peaceful sincerity in Trump’s ear while simultaneously doubling down on his war to exterminate Ukrainian statehood.
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TURNS THE SCREWS ON FREE SPEECH
In short, if Trump wants to have any chance of securing a peace deal, he will have to do to Putin what he has done to Zelensky. Which is to say, leverage actual American power to get Putin into a more concessionary mindset.
The Russian leader does not respect words. He only respects action.