A 100-day attempt by the United States led by President Donald J. Trump to impose a quick end to the Russo-Ukrainian War has failed and so the White House will wash its hands of the mess and move on, administration officials admitted on Thursday.
Trump, a New York real estate mogul serving as the US Chief Executive once before, from 2016-2020, during campaigning for a second term claimed his deal-making skills would bring peace to Ukraine and Russia “in 24 hours” or even before taking office. However, in a late April interview with Time magazine, Trump told an interviewer he had been “joking” somewhat.
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on April 18 was among the first administration officials to signal US efforts to turn Trump’s election claims about his peace-making skills into reality were near an end, and the US was close to giving up.
“Well let’s remind everybody this is not our war…And it’s a war that has no military solution. In essence, Putin can’t take all of Ukraine. The Ukrainians can’t push the Russians all the way back to where they were in 2014. And so the question here is, who is the only leader in the world that can talk to both sides and hopefully bring them to a deal, and that’s President Trump,” Rubio said in his April 18 comments.
Ukrainian media following Rubio’s remarks widely predicted the US would back out of active efforts to promote a Russo-Ukrainian peace. In mid-April, lawmaker Mariana Bezhula, citing diplomatic sources, told Telegram followers Trump deal-making efforts were “over,” and that in the next few weeks the US would back away from Trump’s campaign promise to end the war quickly.
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Mid-April comments by Trump that the US was willing to recognize Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in exchange for a peace deal were widely condemned by Ukrainian politicians and media as a betrayal and evidence of American plans to throw Ukraine under the bus in exchange for better relations with the Kremlin.
Vice President James D. (JD) Vance on May 1 (matching Bezhula’s schedule) in comments to US media announced months of US pressure that ultimately forced Moscow and Kyiv to declare conditions for starting peace talks was a brilliant Trump diplomatic victory his boss should be praised for.
“I really don’t believe that any person, of the eight billion people in the world, that could have gotten this deal done, other than Donald J. Trump. When I say ‘this deal’, I mean getting these guys to actually propose a peace settlement. But it’s going to be up to the Russians and Ukrainians,” Vance said.
But Vance – who infamously during a February Oval office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Ukrainian leader of disrespecting Trump and not being thankful enough for American assistance – added that the actual peace negotiations were out of America’s hands. The Ukrainian nation should nonetheless be grateful to President Trump for his unique deal-making skills, Vance said.
”It’s (the Russo-Ukraine War) not gonna end any time soon. And I think for the Ukrainians, yes of course they’re angry that they were invaded, but are we gonna continue to lose thousands and thousands of soldiers over a few miles of territory this or that way? I hope that they both come to their senses. And if they do, it will be because Donald J. Trump, I think, brokered one of the great peace deals of the 21st century.”
Currently the Russian military occupies about 20% of Ukraine, in actual acreage about 180,000 square kilometers (61,000 square miles). That land space is about one and a half times the size of Vance’s home state Ohio. Most observers estimate about 80-100,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 20-30,000 civilians have died as a result of Russia’s invasion. A recent UN estimate put the value of damage caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at around a half trillion dollars.
Russia, in September 2022, declared all Ukrainian territories it occupies as inalienable parts of the Russian Federation and made that position a basic plank of Russian foreign policy. Russian peace terms handed over to US negotiators in April 2024 were unchanged: For Russia to end its attacks the US and the world – including Ukraine – must sanction Russia’s land grab, full stop.
Ukraine, since 2014, has said Russia’s invasion is armed aggression violating international law and the UN Charter, and demanded Russia remove its troops from all Ukrainian territory and pay reparations. This official Kyiv stance has been consistent for a decade and did not change during the Trump administration’s 100-day peace offensive.
Mariana Betsa, a senior Ukrainian diplomat speaking at the United Nations, in a Wednesday speech to the General Assembly laid out the unchanged Ukrainian position.
“We have bad news for Russia. Ukraine will not surrender. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable. Justice is non-negotiable. Children are non-negotiable,” Betsa said.
Ukraine has accused the Kremlin of kidnapping more than 20,000 children living in territories invaded by the Russian army and taking them to Russia for re-education as Russian citizens. Moscow officials have said it was for the children’s safety. In August 2022 the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest for possible complicity in forced resettlement of Ukrainian minors, a war crime.
Parallel with the Vice President, at the US State Department, spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, in a Thursday briefing, said peace talks between Russia and Ukraine were difficult, that the US no longer sees itself as an engine for peace between Russia and Ukraine, and that US has lots of other commitments.
“It is now between the two parties, and now – now is the time that they need to present and develop concrete ideas about how this conflict is going to end. It’s going to be up to them,” Bruce said.
Asked by a reporter if that meant US policy would lean more towards Russia or Ukraine in the future, Bruce answered: “What we do know is that the President is in fact the one who is running this country. It is his leadership and vision that has set the tone and the trajectory and the policy… It is a tremendously successful foreign policy. And whatever the president decides, it will be successful.”
In Russia, top Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyev, during his Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov news talk show said the Kremlin need not be concerned about future US actions, nor what the US might do about the war or to Russia, because Trump is weak.
“Will he impose additional sanctions or not? Trump isn’t Putin! He doesn’t have the all-powerful authority and capacity to do that. He is under massive pressure from the Senate!,” Solovyev said. “This is not something we should be worried about.”
Magarita Simonyan, director of the main Kremlin international messaging platform RT (formerly Russia Today), in comments aired on the Russian Federation’s most-watched news broadcast to thirteen time zones told millions of Russian viewers the US president is unlikely to influence events in Ukraine and Russia, because he is ill-informed and ignorant.
“Trump is an impressionable person. Of course, it’s clear that people were whispering to him that he’s the very best of all people,” Simonyan said. “Therefore, whatever he gets told, he believes. Because he simply doesn’t know the details.”
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