Gift for Putin as fears grow that Trump is turning the screws on Ukraine

Ultimately, you have to wonder what it is that Vladimir Putin says to Donald Trump when they are on the phone.

A week ago, a call between the US president and his Russian counterpart seemed to be about an urgent clarification over a possible outbreak of plague in Siberia. Instead, a controversial deal to buy Russian diesel emerged, prompting fury from Ukrainians, and then Trump demanding they get a new president. For days, fears grew across Europe this may spill into the real world of the US limiting military aid and intelligence for Ukraine, and in the past 48 hours, that might be spilling into reality.

Twice now, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared Kyiv was not given the usual warning about Russian ballistic missile attacks from its partners.

The US, whose satellites and other methods are the early warning mechanisms for Russian launches, normally provide Ukrainians a vital few minutes to run to the shelter before the missiles hit. Thirty-nine slammed into Ukraine last night. President Trump has openly rejected the idea he has stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, saying Tuesday: “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel.” But that does not preclude the possibility less intelligence is being shared, or it is less in real time.

With the dead from Russian strikes often in the dozens, as Moscow seeks to yet further widen the envelope of what civilian carnage it will impose, a sudden withdrawal of these early warnings would mean many Ukrainians will likely die. It is possible there is another reason for Zelensky’s messaging – that he is pre-emptively posturing, or that poor weather or technical issues prompted the lack of warnings.

The second withdrawal of assistance that appeared to beset Ukraine Wednesday also suggests Trump is squeezing them harder.

Starlink space-based internet antennae – assisting Ukrainian medium and longer-range drones to hit their targets, and interceptors to tackle Russian loitering drones – have had significant speed limits imposed on them. This may amount to the removal of a bonus capability negotiated by the former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov with Space X’s owner, Elon Musk. It is important to note it is not comparable to Musk’s decision to entirely stop Starlink functioning inside Russia, which significantly hampered Moscow’s frontline operations in the summer of last year. But it is a palpable snub with operational significance, and one that Ukrainian officials have said would only have occurred at the behest of the White House.

For days, European and Ukrainian officials have warned the US was threatening to limit intelligence and other cooperation if Kyiv did not stop hitting Russian diesel facilities. Trump has – somewhat misleadingly – stated Ukrainian targeting of Moscow’s oil facilities is behind a surge in pump prices in the United States, choosing to ignore the role the Strait of Hormuz has played in this global economic calamity. It is possible the Starlink slowdown and lack of ballistic warnings shows this threat coming to life.

President Trump has denied this is the case, but that is not in of itself definitive proof it is not happening. Trump has also – since he spoke to Putin – again swung from deciding to finally allow Ukraine to build its own Patriot interceptors, a high-profile and vital move long-prevaricated over, to deciding the true obstacle to peace is Zelensky, the president of the invaded country, who has been asking for an immediate ceasefire for over a year.

It does not appear to influence Trump’s thought process when Putin attacks Ukrainian energy facilities in the middle of Trump’s self-declared “energy ceasefire.” Or when Putin’s operatives plot to murder a dissident in Washington DC. Or when US businesses are relentlessly hit in Ukraine. There are moments when Trump simply appears bent on hurting Ukraine and damaging its position. We may never learn why, or what it is that Putin says to him to cause this relatively frequent flip in Trump’s worldview.

Conjecture might revive the old trope that Trump the real-estate dealmaker seeks to pressure his subcontractors (here, Ukraine) to get the deal to go through or forge a price more palatable to his end consumer (Putin), who he has correctly assessed is in the driving seat of the war and therefore any peace deal. But the timing of this pressure rarely comes when a deal is close, or appears supported by logic. Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel, by most analysis, won’t impact prices at the American pump before the mid-terms, but will likely flood the Kremlin’s coffers with badly needed cash.

Zelensky and his European allies have seen this vacillation enough times to be inured to its emotional impact, and perhaps even relaxed about how long it might sustain. Perhaps more Trump-whispering by France’s Macron, or another call from NATO’s Rutte, or visit from Italy’s Meloni, will see the US president flip back again. Indeed, Zelensky was in London Wednesday, and the topic has surely come up.

But Trump’s persistent sympathy for Russia’s position remains a mystery of our time. Critics say it is unlikely to achieve his apparent goal of a peace deal, incompatible with the long-term security interests of the United States, and oblivious to Moscow’s role in assisting Iran , which continues to embarrass Trump and injure American servicemen.

There is an inherent risk in the current state of affairs, however, to both Trump and Putin.

First, Trump might create such acrimony in his transatlantic relationships, that his allies simply zone him out for the 18 months after the mid-terms, and wait for him to depart. That could leave Trump further hamstrung when dealing with an intractable conflict, spreading in the Middle East.

There is risk for Putin too.

Europe and Ukraine being forced to forge ahead without the United States, fashion resilience, find new methods, and surge funding into their defense, does not leave the Kremlin in a dominant position. The more Moscow antagonizes Europe, the more it arms up, and the greater, in the long-term, the (defensive) threat Europe’s armies pose to Russia.

Ukraine has shown extraordinary inventiveness and capability. That is unlikely to stop, and likely to again reshape the landscape of warfare in the coming years. Similarly, Russia’s capacity to absorb pain is immense. Yet its breaking point is rarely publicly visible, and tends to surge menacingly from the deep without warning, as when the frustrated chief of Russia’s infamous Wagner mercenary force launched a short-lived rebellion in 2023.

In the immediate term however, the risk of this current strategy is born entirely by Ukraine. Its children and mothers are dying from nightly strikes. Its cities are sleepless. And its military aid is prey to two powerful men’s curious bromance.

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