It would be more morally defensible for the White House to swallow its pride and walk away than force an unjust peace on Ukraine. Daniel DePetris
Updated May 20, 2025 – 8.28am,first published at 8.11am
To hear J.D. Vance, the vice president, tell it, the phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was going to be a test case as to whether Moscow was serious about ending the war.
“The president has been very clear, the United States is not going to spin its wheels here,” Vance told journalists. “We want to see outcomes.”
Well, there weren’t many outcomes other than a promise to continue talking. After a two-hour conversation with Putin, alongside more discussions with President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders, Trump sought to put the best possible light on his efforts.
“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said on Truth Social. The Kremlin was decidedly unimpressed and you can hardly blame it.
But let’s be honest: the Trump-Putin call was never going to produce a diplomatic breakthrough. Given the respective positions of Ukraine and Russia, to expect otherwise would be naive at best and idiotic in the extreme.
Trump, for all his bold words about getting Putin and Zelensky into a room to work something out, has appeared increasingly frustrated at the failures of his efforts.
Trump isn’t a details-oriented man – he wanted a big result on the phone call. But he also has his pride. He wasn’t about to admit that the peace talks are going nowhere very fast. Read the riot act?
Some observers were hoping that Trump would read Putin the riot act: show some goodwill and sign onto an unconditional, 30-day ceasefire or face the full power of US financial sanctions and ruin your chance of a rapprochement from Washington.
Again, that was never likely. Trump has proven hesitant to do anything to Putin that could rock the diplomatic boat.
Sure, splashing more sanctions on the Russian economy might frighten the Kremlin enough into agreeing to the short-term truce it spurned just a few days ago. Yet such a turn on Trump’s part might also push Putin into being even more unco-operative. Trump still wants a peace deal, and whether you like it or not, Putin has a veto over the entire process.
Should we expect a renewed jolt of energy into the peace talks? Yes and no. Based on Trump’s assessment, Putin has agreed to redouble his efforts.
The Russian leader declared that Moscow will “propose and is ready to work with” Ukraine on a possible framework for a peace treaty. Trump can legitimately claim that the Russians aren’t walking away. Very low bar
The bad news, though, is that an agreement merely to continue discussions is a very low bar. It’s far short of the final resolution to the conflict that Trump has said he wants.
Nor are continued discussions guaranteed to produce any compromise on the disputes that have divided the Russians and Ukrainians over the past three years – Ukraine’s relationship with the West; how much Ukrainian land Russia will get to keep; whether the Russian occupation will be formally legitimised; and what security guarantees will be available, if any, to Kyiv in a post-war environment.
Zelensky and Putin clash on all of these points. Neither side has really budged an inch even after sustaining hundreds of thousands of casualties.
When Kyiv and Moscow last week engaged in their first direct talks since March 2022, they regurgitated their usual talking points about what was and wasn’t acceptable in a prospective peace deal.
The Russians demanded the Ukrainian army withdraw from the four regions Putin annexed in the northern autumn of 2022, even though the Russians have been unable to capture this territory in full.
The Ukrainians rejected the demand and countered with a request for an unconditional truce to get the ball rolling for substantive discussions. The Russians, predictably, rejected those terms as well.
Does Trump have a plan B for Ukraine if the talks collapse?
The options are few. Trump could do what many of the Russia hawks are recommending by reverting to the Biden-era policy, which coupled continuous, unconditional arms shipments to the Ukrainians, increased sanctions on the Russian economy, and diplomatic isolation of Moscow.
Or Trump could withdraw from the process, blame one or both parties for intransigence, and hand the Ukraine file over to the Europeans, who, after all, have a greater stake in this war than the Americans do.
The first will be popular in the West but a recipe for more war. The second will unleash screams of righteous indignation but is still more morally defensible than shoving a peace deal down Zelensky’s throat that he does not support.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defence Priorities think tank.
