At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to channel Trump when Zelensky berated European leaders for not investing more in the continent’s defense, later saying that it would take a 200,000-strong European peacekeeping force to deter Russia from attacking again in the wake of a settlement—a contingent roughly the same size as the entire active-duty personnel in the French Armed Forces.
U.S. President Donald Trump did not, as promised on the campaign trail, manage to broker an end to the war in Ukraine on day one of his return to the White House. But during his first week in office, Trump and the presidents of Russia and Ukraine continued to stake out their negotiating positions ahead of a widely anticipated U.S.-led push to end the conflict.
U.S. President Donald Trump did not, as promised on the campaign trail, manage to broker an end to the war in Ukraine on day one of his return to the White House. But during his first week in office, Trump and the presidents of Russia and Ukraine continued to stake out their negotiating positions ahead of a widely anticipated U.S.-led push to end the conflict.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to channel Trump when Zelensky berated European leaders for not investing more in the continent’s defense, later saying that it would take a 200,000-strong European peacekeeping force to deter Russia from attacking again in the wake of a settlement—a contingent roughly the same size as the entire active-duty personnel in the French Armed Forces.
For his part, Trump threatened to impose “high levels” of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on Russian imports if a deal isn’t reached soon. The war’s instigator, Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Friday that he was “ready for negotiations” and suggested meeting with Trump in person, describing his relationship with the U.S. leader as “businesslike, pragmatic, and trustworthy.”
Despite the conciliatory tone, experts and former Russian and U.S. government officials say they see no sign that Putin is ready to climb down from his ultimate goal of permanently bending Ukraine to his will. For the U.S. president who pitches himself as the dealmaker-in-chief, brokering a sustainable end to the war could prove to be his most difficult deal yet.
“I’ve seen no public evidence, or heard from anyone that I trust who knows Putin well, that indicates he is ready to negotiate,” said Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
A rare point of consensus between Russian and Western officials is that Moscow’s war aims remain unchanged as the third anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine looms. Putin still seeks to strip Ukraine of its sovereignty and ability to pursue an independent foreign policy that could, as many Ukrainians now desire, see it pursue NATO membership.
The war is also Putin’s effort to draw a line in the sand with the United States. “It’s about Ukraine not in NATO and NATO not in Ukraine,” said Peter Schroeder, who served on the National Intelligence Council as principal deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia until 2022. “There’s no magic sweet spot to which you can raise the costs for Putin that will persuade him to abandon those core goals,” he said.
Asked for comment about the potential negotiations to end the war, the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., directed Foreign Policy to an article originally published on the site Telegra.ph in December by the country’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev, in which he wrote that “Ukraine today stands at a crossroads: to align with Russia or to vanish from the world map altogether” and that the country should “resist opposing themselves to the pan-Russian project, and drive out the demons of political Ukrainianism.”
Moreover, experts say that Putin appears to feel that the wind is at his back in achieving these aims. Russian forces are making gradual gains in eastern Ukraine as the Biden administration, which led the Western coalition in supporting Kyiv, has packed its bags. The Russian leader believes that he is very close to achieving his objective of forcing the capitulation of Kyiv, said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the Russian political analysis firm R.Politik. Putin is not opposed to talks with Trump, so long as they secure the same outcome. “If the talks with Trump do not lead to this goal, he will drop it and he will achieve it by military means,” she said.
The war has come at a vertiginous cost for Russia. More than 600,000 of its troops are estimated to have been wounded or killed. Export controls imposed by a coalition of countries intended to starve the Russian defense industrial base were painted with such a broad brush that sunglasses, contact lenses, and false teeth were also swept up in the prohibitions. Inflation is at 9.5 percent while the country’s skilled central banker, Elvira Nabiullina, is running out of options to prop up the flailing ruble.
The Russian economy may be the most sanctioned on Earth, but there is still more that could be done to push Putin to the negotiating table. “There is head room in increasing the leverage in both the financial and energy sectors,” said Michael Carpenter, who served as senior director for Europe at the National Security Council until earlier this month. Key to persuading Putin to consider a deal is convincing him that it would be futile to deploy more troops and resources to continue the war, Carpenter said.
Trump’s threat of tariffs would have limited impact. Imports of Russian goods dropped sharply following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Moscow exporting $2.8 billion worth of goods to the United States last year, down from almost $30 billion in 2021. But stronger U.S. actions, such as blocking sanctions on Russian oil majors, are “extremely low-hanging fruit” that could make it a lot more difficult for Russia to sell its oil and gas, said Edward Fishman, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
But the Russian economy, while bruised, has proved surprisingly resilient. Moscow has continued to find workarounds, including by turning to Iran, China, and North Korea to sell its energy and procure weapons. A surge in defense spending, which will account for some 40 percent of the state budget this year, has fueled economic growth, driving up wages—particularly among the working class—which has helped pacify the population.
While it’s unlikely to prove a sustainable economic strategy, it could see Putin frustrate Trump’s hopes of bringing the war to a quick resolution. “Western hopes rest on a false assumption,” Alexandra Prokopenko, who worked at the Russian Central Bank until early 2022, wrote in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs. “Russia’s economic challenges are not yet so acute that they will make a meaningful difference in the war in the near term.”
As for the lives of Putin’s troops, “Russian lives are no concern for him. It’s just cannon fodder,” said Boris Bondarev, the only Russian diplomat to publicly resign in protest over the invasion of Ukraine.
A person close to the Ukrainian government, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said that officials in Kyiv understand that the Trump administration has to make outreach to Moscow, but that Trump officials would likely discover Putin unwilling to compromise. “They have to go through the process. They have to reach these conclusions on their own,” the person said.
With Putin unlikely to be bowed by economic pressure, at least in the short term, it leaves two options on the table, said Schroeder. “You either decide that you’re going to negotiate in a way that addresses those two core things that Putin wants,” or you try to hold the line in Ukraine until the Russian president leaves the scene, he said.
Trump’s lieutenants have floated ideas for how to end the war. In an April 2024 paper co-authored with Fred Fleitz, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who has since been tasked by Trump to serve as special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, sketched out the broad contours of a deal that would see Ukraine temporarily lose control of Russian-occupied territories in exchange for unspecified security guarantees from the United States, while Ukraine’s NATO membership would be taken off the table for an extended period.
Whether Putin would be willing to abandon his efforts to keep Ukraine out of NATO by force in exchange for a diplomatic agreement to put the question of the country’s membership in the alliance on ice will likely depend on the details of such an agreement. Zelensky, for his part, sees NATO membership as integral to his country’s survival.
And then there’s the question of whether Putin would faithfully abide by a peace deal. “I think one has to assume that Russia will use any temporary cease-fire or even a peace agreement to rearm and refit and eventually attack at a time of their choosing,” Carpenter said.