Trump chooses friendship with russia over sanctions. What’s next?
US President Donald Trump chooses to be friends with russia rather than stop the war. Another conversation between Trump and Vladimir Putin about Ukraine has ended in nothing. In principle, it could not have ended any other way.
Even before the call, representatives of the Trump administration acknowledged that the talks had reached a deadlock. And then Trump himself concluded his message by saying that he would not mind if the Ukraine-Russia talks became a matter for the Pope, not the US president, in the future.
The worst thing in this scenario for Ukraine is not even that the US president will remove himself from the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The worst thing is that the US may stop giving or even selling weapons to Ukraine. Because the Europeans have no opportunity of replacing this need. And, unfortunately, they have not done anything to strengthen their military industry in three years.
That's why European leaders are making these collective calls to Trump and trying to appease his ambition in their own way. And they are trying to convince him to strengthen sanctions against russia. So far, to no avail.
Instead, he is doing everything he can to bring putin back to the club from which he was expelled for attacking Ukraine. And here it would be worthwhile to finally voice why. And why Trump has such an attachment to putin. Not taking into account the story about nights with prostitutes in moscow and a long-time recruited agent.
Victim of an old grudge
Let's go back to the Oval Office. 28 February 2025. Perhaps one of the darkest days in relations between Ukraine and the United States. And let's recall one of Trump's monologues that we missed back then.
He (putin - ed.) withstood this fake "witch hunt" when he was used in all these "russia, russia, russia, russia" stories.
Have you heard of it?
It was a lie, a fake.
The scam of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, the fraudster Adam Schiff, a Democrat, was all a scam of the Democrats.
And putin had to go through this.
But he withstood it.
And what was the result? The war did not start.
He was accused of everything, and he lived through it all.
This story came straight out of Hunter Biden's bathroom, his bedroom. It was disgusting.
And then they started talking:
"Oh, this laptop is from hell - it's made by russia."
The 51st US intelligence agent... The whole thing was a scam. And putin had to tolerate it.
He was accused of everything.
All I can say is that maybe he broke agreements with Obama or Bush, and maybe he broke them with Biden. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I don't know."
In principle, it is quite difficult for an outsider to grasp the essence of this set of words. And even for a person who has been in journalism for 5 years.
In fact, this refers to Donald Trump's accusations of collaboration with russia, which were made during the 2016 and 2020 election campaigns.
In 2019, Trump was charged with abuse of power and obstruction of justice and faced impeachment. This happened after he had a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July 2019 and asked him to launch an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of then US Vice President Joe Biden.
At the time, Hunter was a member of the board of directors of the Ukrainian company Burisma. The Democrats believed that Trump had abused his position by putting pressure on a foreign country for his own political gain. This accusation was seen as an attempt to gain personal gain to the detriment of US national interests. The impeachment was voted down by the House of Representatives, but the Senate acquitted Trump and he remained in office.
What preceded this? In the 2016 election campaign, the Democrats played the card of Trump's cooperation with Russia, from investing in his business to his memories of nights with prostitutes in Moscow. The Ukrainian case was also used, when NABU revealed the work of his political strategist Paul Manafort for the Party of Regions headquarters and the receipt of funds from offshore accounts. This was part of the campaign against Trump, in which Democrats tried to prove that Manafort was the most likely link between Trump and Moscow.
Manafort advised Viktor Yanukovych and, according to both sides, provided investment advisory services to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. For a long time, Manafort's assistant was Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian who was considered by the US intelligence services to be a Russian intelligence agent.
In 2019, Paul Manafort was sentenced to 7.5 years for a number of bank frauds, as well as tax evasion and collusion. But the investigation by special prosecutor Robert Mueller has not found evidence of collusion between Trump or his associates and Russia.
Trump has not forgotten this and in 2017 sent his lobbyists to Ukraine to look for dirt on Hunter Biden and his father's interest in influencing the gas sector in Ukraine. Already in 2020, during the presidential campaign, which Trump lost, "dirt" from Hunter Biden's laptop was used, which referred to Joe Biden's business interests in Ukraine and his discussions with his son.
The correspondence was published by the New York Post, which we can call pro-Republican. But since there was little evidence, Trump preferred to get more from the Ukrainian prosecutor's office, both the PGO and the SAPO. In particular, after Zelenskyy's inauguration, Rudy Giuliani met in Paris with the then head of the SAPO, Nazar Kholodnytskyi. In July, Trump himself tried to put pressure on Zelenskyy. This almost led to impeachment.
The last detail from Trump's speech on 28 February. Who is Adam Schiff? He chaired the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats had a majority in the House of Representatives. He was also the so-called "manager" of Trump's impeachment and actively participated in another trial against the former president.
6 years ago, on 20 May, the day of Zelenskyy's inauguration, Trump's entourage began to pressure him into agreeing on Biden. And they got nothing.
Does Trump still remember this story? Obviously, he does. And this story is clearly one of the sources of his sympathy for putin. That's why we hear Ushakov's statements about "they did not want to end the conversation and hang up".
putin's diplomatic success
After the conversation on Monday, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton said that Putin had already outplayed Trump.
"The only thing Putin wanted was a direct dialogue with Trump. And he got it," Bolton said in an interview with Estonian broadcaster ERR.
Bolton noted that Trump had finally realised that the diplomatic process has reached a deadlock, and the US was now on the verge of deciding to withdraw as a mediator in the negotiations.
Before Trump's call to Putin, the Ukrainian president and European leaders had hoped that Trump would join the European position on strengthening sanctions against russia. In principle, the May 9 parade in Moscow with the participation of the Chinese leader and the new partnership for building a new world order proclaimed there should have pushed Trump to take these actions.
He was prompted to do so by the coalition of the willing who gathered in Kyiv on 10 May.
Instead, a New York Times article published on Wednesday said that Trump refused to join the European Union's sanctions pressure on Russia.
"Mr. Trump told President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and other European leaders after his call with Mr. Putin that Russia and Ukraine would have to find a solution to the war themselves, just days after saying that only he and Mr. Putin had the power to broker a deal. And he backed away from his own threats to join a European pressure campaign that would include new sanctions on Russia, according to six officials who were familiar with the discussion. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation," the newspaper writes.
"Mr. Putin seems to understand Mr. Trump’s eagerness for commerce, and has steered much of their conversations toward the potential economic relationship, according to people briefed on their phone calls on Monday and earlier this year. As a result, Europe is now moving toward new sanctions and the United States appears poised to move in the opposite direction, looking to get past Ukraine and nurture a larger relationship with Russia. It’s exactly the kind of split inside NATO that Mr. Putin has been looking to create, and exploit, for two decades," the article says
However, this is not the main question now. The question is whether the US will continue to provide weapons to Ukraine.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. has not stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine, but "there is no decision on whether to form new aid packages at this time."
The coalition of willing but unprepared
In early May, European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius said that the EU and the US provided Ukraine with about €40 billion a year in military aid.
If the United States withdraws from this process, the "real cost" of EU support for Ukraine "will increase to 80 billion euros".
But the problem is different - not everything that is available in Europe can replace the American one. Starting with Starlink and ending with Patriot.
European Commissioner for Security Andrius Kubilius.
Another problem is that despite the declared readiness to spend 150 billion euros out of the 800 billion euros of the defence budget on Ukraine, this money still needs to be found somewhere. And the Europeans are just beginning this process. At the same time, the positions of different speakers among Europeans vary greatly - from we have the money to "um, we need to ask Australia".
For example, the use of Russia's frozen 300 billion in public funds remains a problem for the EU. There are many opponents of their use in Europe, as it could allegedly undermine confidence in the banking system, among other things. So far, Europeans see only the legal option of using the interest from these assets.
In addition, over the past 3 years, Europeans have not increased their own arms production. In early February, in Brussels, a representative of a think tank outlined this position to the author of the article: "Many European businessmen still believe that the war between Russia and Ukraine is the last one. And that there is no need to invest in expanding the defence sector, because it will take 20 years to recoup it."
It was only the scandal in the White House on 28 February and the subsequent cold shower from Vance at the Munich conference that made the EU wake up.
But to make up for the lost time, Europeans are still doomed to appease Trump. Because Europe's own defence resources were mostly US defence resources invested in NATO.
American interest
What does Ukraine have in this game? Out of the 20 points of Kellogg's peace plan, we currently have only a "subsoil agreement" or an investment fund.
"We have a pragmatic partner. When this partner invests in Ukraine's economy, it will have even more motivation to defend our country," said Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko during a discussion on "New Country" hosted by "Left Bank" editor-in-chief Sonia Koshkina.
Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko
The US side can contribute to the fund not only with money but also with military assistance, Svyrydenko said.
On 13 May, the US DFC (International Development Finance Corporation - Ed.) and the Public-Private Partnership Agency of Ukraine signed two more commercial agreements to complement the main one implemented by the Verkhovna Rada on 8 May.
The first money from the US is expected by early September, but for the launch of the fund.
"From the list of components and minerals included in the agreement, a large number are not traded on the stock exchange. They do not have a public, official index quotation. They are traded on an OTC basis - over-the-counter. This means direct trading relations between market operators. You won't see an open market for such items as zirconium, germanium, gallium, hafnium, holmium, neodymium. This is a market that is formed between operators on a direct basis," said Yehor Perelygin, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine.
"And so one of the main tasks was to diversify these risks for the United States. And to give them the opportunity to work in our field, in our geography, in those areas that will cover their strategic needs. It should be a win-win for both sides," the representative of the Ministry of Environment added on "New Country".
Judging by what Perelygin and former "Naftogaz" CEO Andrii Koboliev have said, gas and ilmenite may be the biggest areas of interest for American investors. But no one can predict when investments will start there.
So now everything looks like a lot of confusion, where it would be a plus if the US takes the position of 2016 and passes the ball of the truce talks to Europe.
The second good sign came from the Senate. As journalist Ostap Yarysh writes, the US Senate is becoming increasingly impatient with the imposition of sanctions against Russia.
The bipartisan bill by Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal has already garnered the support of 81 senators out of 100.
"While we want peace, it is increasingly clear to us - and to the Senate supermajority - that Putin is playing games. If these games continue, the United States Senate is ready to act," Graham and Blumenthal said in a joint statement, the journalist writes.
In addition to direct sanctions, the draft law provides for secondary sanctions and a 500% tariff on imports from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium, and other products. This primarily concerns China. "Without China's economic support, Putin's military machine will come to a complete standstill," the authors of the document write.
At the moment, Republicans are waiting for Donald Trump's go-ahead and Majority Leader John Thune is not bringing it up for consideration.
"I respect Leader Thune's position. But at some point, you just can't ignore 81 signatures," Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters, according to Yarysh.
So the story does not seem hopeless. Especially if the Senate's will is at odds with Trump's.
Tetiana Nikolaienko, Censor. NET
