The Politics Of Peace
Trump faces the limits of his approach to Russia
Good meeting. We discussed a lot one on one. Hoping for results on everything we covered. Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out. Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results. Thank you POTUS. — Volodymyrr Zelenskyy, 26 April 2025, via X
Contrary to the delighted speculations of MAGA, the president of Ukraine seems to regard Saturday morning’s impromptu conversation with Donald Trump as a productive one. Zelenskyy’s hands appear active in imagery of their meeting. Trump looks calm and attentive to what his counterpart is saying.
Popes always want peace — well, at least since Pious XI lost his army in the wars of the Italian risorgimento, anyway — so it was fitting that the two of them should discuss peace at the funeral for Pope Francis. Trump, I maintain, genuinely dislikes war, preferring relatively bloodless trade war to literal war. He is however unable to protect the Ukrainian people or deliver a full and unconditional ceasefire for Ukraine. Contrary to the hope for peace expressed in his tweet, Zelenskyy knows damn well that Trump cannot deliver. He is counting on failure to alter Trump’s direction.
Video appeared to show French President Emmanuel Macron dodging a handshake with Trump at the funeral, possibly while intervening in a standing encounter between Trump and Zelenskyy. It is far too easy to make too much of these nonverbal exchanges, but Trump has to feel the pressure from Europeans unhappy with his approach to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Using his personal social media network, Trump shared his thoughts after the one-on-one meeting as he flew home on Air Force One. As usual, Trump’s main concern was to distance himself from the war in Ukraine and blame his predecessors. He simultaneously disowns the war and demands to set the terms of the peace. It never occurs to him that what Putin really wants most is not peace, but an American president speaking for Ukraine at the peace table.
I’m just trying to clean up the mess that was left to me by Obama and Biden, and what a mess it is. With all of that being said, there was no reason for Putin to be shooting down missiles into civilian areas, cities, and towns, over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through “Banking” or “Secondary Sanctions?” Too many people are dying!!!
The phrase “tapping me along” is both peculiar and suggestive. Trump seems to feel that Putin is attacking him when he attacks Ukraine. An expression of distrust is remarkable as well because it is new. The suggestion of possible administrative actions — for example, using the policy tools that President Biden left on the table — is absolutely novel.
Donald Trump believed he could make Ukraine give up enough territory to secure their own future safety without NATO or EU membership or American military aid. He is discovering that no such transaction is acceptable to Putin or the ruling clique in the Kremlin, who maintain their maximalist demands against Kyiv.
They want Ukraine altogether unable to resist the next invasion in five or ten or fifteen years, whenever the Russkiy Mir project is ready to resume, so they demand “demilitarization” of Ukraine and plead for instant sanctions relief. Trump has met many diplomatic demands, shuttered federal offices that were giving Russian oligarchs and genocidaires heartburn, reportedly even stood down the American cyberwar machine. What good has it done him? He has to wonder, by now.
It was “very bad timing” to bombard Kyiv, Trump wrote, adding: “Vladimir, STOP!” If that seems a bit pathetic, remember that it is also performative. Donald Trump lacks emotional nuance but he has a mind. It can change. Zelenskyy and Europeans are doing their best to change his mind. He is performing the changing of his mind, at least a little. The question now is how much more Vladimir Putin might do to change his mind.
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov was on CBS Sunday to say that Russia agrees to an unconditional ceasefire, though with various conditions. The Kremlin doesn’t want Ukraine getting any more weapons from the West. In fact, they don’t want Ukrainians having any more weapons at all. Russia is apparently afraid that random apartment blocks in Kyiv will even be used against them.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So just to be clear, when the President of the United States says, "Vladimir, STOP!" Is this a rejection of that request? Was the assessment that, because of what you say regarding the concerns that this loss of civilian life made it worth it?
MINISTER LAVROV: Well, I can assure you that the target attacked was not something absolutely civilian like TV center in Belgrade in 1999- this was an intentional attack against civilian target. In our case, we only target those sites which are used by the military.
NATO and the EU want to “make Ukraine stronger, would make Ukraine a victor,” Lavrov complained. Russia’s ruling clique has to win, dominate, control, otherwise it’s not “peace,” to them. But Russian forces have been utterly embarrassed every day on the battlefield for over three years; Putin cannot win through force. He can only ever win through political division of the West, and Trump has been his useful idiot in that regard.
But Trump is also responsive to humiliation. Putin is humiliating him right now. Everyone can see it and so can Trump. Peter Baker writes at the Washington Post that Trump has already given Putin a “shopping list of what he wanted from Washington.”
“Trump has played right into Putin’s hands,” said Ivo Daalder, the chief executive of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama. “It’s hard to see how Trump would have acted any differently if he were a Russian asset than how he has acted in the first 100 days of his second term.”
Oof! Trump can’t escape that “Russian asset” charge now like he did with Robert Mueller. Self-awareness may not be his strong suit, but Trump does not want to reinforce that image of himself as Putin’s fool. Until now, Trump has dealt with Putin as an equal on the global stage — a potential friend and partner in world peace. He still wants to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. He wants a transaction of brands that elevates the Trump name and resets the US-Russia relationship.
Herein lies the flaw: Trump is now the third and fifth American president in a row to attempt a reset with Putin’s Russia. No reset is ever going to happen. He believes that the other three presidents failed because they were not a stable genius like him. In fact, Russian resets have all failed because Vladimir Putin is not interested in peace with the United States, or Europe, or Ukraine. The ‘greatness’ Putin wants for the Russkiy mir is not the same as the greatness Trump wants for America.
Trump’s team seems increasingly defensive about charges of Russian influence lately. “When it comes to Russia and Ukraine, he’s trying to appease the world by ending the war and bringing it to a peaceful resolution,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tells the Washington Post.
Get that? Trump’s press secretary admits that he has tried to make peace through appeasement. Neville Chamberlainian! Looks Weak! Because the world he has appeased is the Russian one, the Russkiy mir, and peace is the last thing that the Russian world really wants from him.
Europeans get this, so they are passing on his peace plan. Ukrainians get this, so they agree in principle but they are not waiting on the President of the United States. Donald Trump stood out from the rest of the world leaders at Vatican City. It was more than just his blue suit among all the black suits. It was his irrelevance.
“We urge an end to the policy of appeasement and call instead for a united, resolute stance against Russia’s terrorist regime,” reads a Friday statement. The chairs of the foreign affairs committes of the parliaments of France, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states “call upon the United States and other NATO members to admit Ukraine into NATO without delay.”
“The only thing to do is for Putin to stop lying,” Macron told reporters in reaction to missiles bombarding Kyiv. Trump is getting his one shot at peace, and it depends entirely on Putin.
When Putin talks to American negotiatiors he says, ‘I want peace.’ When he talks to the whole planet, he says ‘I want peace.’ He continues to bomb Ukraine. He continues to bomb Ukrainian people. There’s only one answer we’re waiting for: does President Putin agree to an unconditional ceasefire? The Americans have proposed it, the Europeans support it, President Zelenskyy has said yes. If President Putin says yes, the guns will fall silent. Tomorrow, lives will be saved. And America’s anger must be directed at only one person, President Putin. He has to answer the question he has been asked. Then we can build a just, solid, lasting, robust peace.
Normally, Trump’s reaction to failure is disinterest. The best-case scenario for Putin is that he loses interest in peace for Ukraine altogether. The worst-case scenario is that the sting of humiliation makes Trump change his mind about Vladimir Putin. Antagonism would be a strategic disaster for Russia. An aroused Trump would not have to do much to hurt Putin, if he wanted.
Enough “tapping along” and he just might want to, because the political has always been personal, for Trump. He becomes performative, makes big gestures, ratchets up his rhetoric. His approach to Putin has always been personal, so if Trump turned against Putin, it would be equally personal.
Before he ever ran for president, Trump was thrilled to play the ‘heel’ (villain) in the wrestling ring with Vince McMahon. In professional wrestling, the term ‘kayfabe’ refers to the fabricated rivalries of the wrestlers. They strut for the camera, act on seeming impulse with concealed calculation, air grievances, trash talk, and practice wrestling moves to do the least real injury on themselves and one another. They are performing a fake fight in which the winner will be the most popular wrestler.
Trump cares very much about being popular. Trump’s love of kayfabe has been acknowledged since 2016 thanks to Dave Metzler, a journalist of professional wrestling. Politico recently returned to him for comment:
“The whole thing is creation of enemies that are probably not even your enemies, and using that to get people to rally behind you,” Meltzer said, alluding to the similarities between pro wrestling and the president’s political style. “‘The reason that you’re not where you want to be is because of these enemies, and I’m going to fight these enemies for you.’”
Volodymyrr Zelenskyy has had his turn as the enemy. Right now, Trump’s approval rating in the USA is tracking below 40 percent. Support for Ukraine is popular in America, even if it has not been popular among MAGA. Trump may not care so much what the Europeans think about him, but he does value the opinions of Americans. It is entirely possible for Trump to change his mind about who the enemy is. He may already be performing the mind-change for his base so that they will change their minds along with him.
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