Why Trump is struggling to win a quick end of fire in Ukraine

When Donald Trump met with President Zelenski in New York last September, then -US presidential candidate broadcasts confidence that he could lead the war in Ukraine at the beginning. “If we win, I think we’ll solve it very quickly,” he said.

How quickly it means varies over time. On a television debate a few days earlier, Trump promised to “settle before he even became president.” It was an escalation of his previous commitment in May 2023 to stop the fighting in the first 24 hours of his Presidency.

Trump has been in service for more than two months and a penny can start to drop in the White House, which is trying to end the conflict as bitter and complex as it can take time.

In a television interview last weekend, the US president admitted that when he promised to end the war for a day, he was “a little sarcastic.”

There are many reasons for the slow progress than Team Trump may have foreseen.

First, the President’s faith in the power of his personal diplomacy, one of one may have been wrong. He has long believed that any international problem can be resolved if he sits with another leader and agreed to a deal. D -Trump For the first time, he spoke with Vladimir Putin on February 12He described an hour and a half as “highly productive”. The two leaders Talk again on March 18th.

But it is clear that these phone calls failed to provide an immediate 30-day temporary termination of the fire that Mr Trump wanted. The only essential concession he pulled out of Putin was a promise to terminate Russian attacks against Ukrainian energy facilities, a commitment accused by Ukraine in fracture Within hours after callS

Second, the Russian president made it clear that he did not intend to be hasty. His first public comments about the negotiations came last week at a press conference, which was a whole month after his phone call with G -N Trump.

Mr. Putin has shown that he is decisive against the US-stage US strategy to search for an intermediate fire before talking about a long-term agreement. Instead, he said that all conversations have to deal with what he sees as “the main causes of war”, namely his fears of NATO’s expanding alliance and the very existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state, somehow pose a threat to Russia’s security. He also raised detailed questions and conditions that must be answered and meet before an agreed transaction can be achieved.

Third, the US strategy to target its initial focus on Ukraine may be incorrect assessment. The White House became convinced that President Zelenski was an obstacle to peace. Western diplomats admit that the Ukrainian government is slowly realizing how much the world has changed with the arrival of G -N Trump.

But US pressure on Kiev, which has led to the scandalous confrontation in the oval office – when G -N -Trump and his deputy chairman, JD Vance, enchanted the Ukrainian leader – took time, effort and political capital.

He also torn the transatlantic relations, putting Europe and the United States in contradiction, another diplomatic problem that took time to settle. All the while, Vladimir Putin was sitting back and enjoying the show, running his time.

Fourth, the pure complexity of the conflict makes it difficult for any resolution. The Ukrainian proposal was originally for intermediate fire in the air and in the sea. The idea was that it would be relatively simple to observe.

But in the discussion of last week in Jedda, the United States insisted that any immediate cessation of fire should also include the front line more than 1200 km to the east. Instantly, this did the logistics to verify any termination of the fire more complicated. This, of course, was then rejected by Putin.

But even his consent with the more fascomation proposal – to end the attacks on energy infrastructure – is not without his problems. It is the details of this proposal that will be held by much of the technical negotiations that are expected to be held in Saudi Arabia on Monday. Military and energy experts will draw up detailed lists of potential power plants – nuclear or otherwise – which can be protected.

They will also try to agree which weapons systems should not be used. But the coordination of the difference between energy and other civil infrastructure may take some time. Remember: Ukraine and Russia do not talk to each other; They engage separately and bilaterally with the United States, which promises to target between the two countries. This again adds to the time.

Fifth, the United States focuses on the economic benefits of ending fire, distracting from the priority of ending fighting. D -H Trump has spent time trying to agree with a framework transaction that gives access to companies to Ukrainian critical minerals. Some saw this like the United States, which invested in the future of Ukraine – others as they blackmail the country’s natural resources.

President Zelenski claims that he or she could initially agree to a deal only if the United States promised to provide Ukraine security guarantees to deter the future Russian aggression. The White House declined, saying that the presence of American mining companies and workers would be determining enough. In the end, Zelenski acknowledged defeat and stated that he would agree to a deal with minerals without security guarantees. However, the United States has not yet signed the agreement, hoping to improve conditions again, probably by including access to or even ownership of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Cutting the wars can be complicated and take a long time. We would not have come to this stage without pressing Trump, but the progress was not as fast or simple as he believed. In December 2018, as he campaign for the Presidency, Volodimir Zelenski suggested that negotiations with Vladimir Putin be quite clear. “You should speak in a very simple way” He told the Ukrainian journalist, Dmytro GordonS “” What do you want, what are your conditions? “And I would say to them,” Here are our points. ” We would agree somewhere in the middle. “

Well, with the evidence of the last two months, it may be more difficult than that.