I don’t think Vladimir Putin has read Donald Trump’s “Art of the Deal”. If he had, he would have recognized that Trump had offered him and Zelensky the best deal they were likely to get to end their brutal war. Trump wanted them to agree to a ceasefire, implying that Putin would be allowed to keep the Ukrainian territory that his army had captured. Putin and Zelensky were to use that ceasefire to engage in serious negotiations needed to end the war.
After a rough start, Zelensky understood that message, and he agreed to a ceasefire.
But, so far, Putin hasn’t, and he seems to have no intention of doing so. Instead, he appears to be playing games with Trump. And it appears that Trump might have finally had enough, going so far as to declare that “Putin has gone crazy”.
Russian born Konstantin Kisinm argues that Putin is not crazy. He is just a typical Russian dictator, who knows full well that Russians will not abide a weak ruler. In Russian history, from Ivan the Terrible’s weakling son, Feodor, to Boris Yeltsin, a drunkard, and weak ruler, has always ushered in a time of chaos and hardship. Putin’s failure to achieve victory after 39 months of fighting against a much smaller opponent looks a lot like weakness, and Putin is painfully aware of that. He cannot afford to end this war with little to show for the considerable price Russia has paid.
But regardless of that, now that Putin has spurned Trump’s peacemaking attempt, there is no guarantee that the terms that Trump rather generously offered to Putin a few short weeks ago are still on the table. And recently things are not going Putin’s way.
Take Ukraine’s brilliant drone attack on Russian airbases, for example. By spending maybe $70,000 on cheap drones, Ukraine not only changed the nature of warfare forever, but also caused billions of dollars in losses to Russia. The bombers wrecked by the Ukrainian drones are the same planes that have caused such misery to Ukraine in terms of lives lost, blasting hospitals, schools, and apartment blocks. Each bomber destroyed means innocent Ukrainian lives saved.
And some of those aircraft are the same lumbering monsters that carry Russia’s vast arsenal of nuclear bombs. Those old Soviet era planes are irreplaceable. The loss to Russia appears to be enormous.
But just as importantly, by what seems to have been a carefully planned and perfectly executed operation Ukraine has dealt Russia, and the belief that Russia will eventually win this war, a massive blow. As Ukrainian and Russian delegations meet in Istanbul to discuss that elusive ceasefire, this clear signal from Ukraine that they have no intention of capitulating to an overbearing Russia will be on everyone’s mind. Russia no longer looks so mighty.
How exactly did Ukraine achieve this “miracle”? It appears that they had false roofs constructed in wooden crates that were loaded onto truck trailers. Inside the false roofs were dozens of small drones. In what looks like a video game, trucks were driven to locations close to the five or six bases that were targeted, the roofs were remotely removed, and the drones activated. There are videos online of the drones flying from the trucks to the amazement of Russian onlookers. It seems that the drivers of the trucks had no idea that their trucks were transporting lethal drones. The drivers were simply driving their rigs to the locations they had been dispatched to.
Just as there was no precedent for last year’s Israeli exploding walkie-talkie operation, there is no precedent for Ukraine’s audacious concealed drone operation. If verified, it would be a first in the history of warfare and would be something for the history books. It is also a major humiliation for Putin, whose generals had left incredibly expensive and irreplaceable aircraft like sitting ducks on the airfields. Apparently, Zelensky himself oversaw the masterful operation.
Had Trump been informed beforehand of the attack? We don’t know. If Ukraine did this without American knowledge or help, it is testimony to how advanced Ukraine’s military has become. If America did have advance notice of the attack, or even participated, it is a strong sign that Trump is fully onboard with Ukraine’s legitimate defence aspirations.
To add insult to injury, Ukraine has also attacked the Kerch Bridge that connects mainland Russia to occupied Crimea. This was also an operation that had been in the planning for many months. The same brilliant commander who planned the drone attack on the Russian airbases planned this highly creative underwater operation that did severe damage to the understructure of the huge bridge. The integrity of the bridge is now said to be in question. But the damage is not just to the bridge. It is to Russian morale, and Putin’s reputation as a capable leader. Both have been badly damaged.
But these are not the only bad signs for Russia, as it heads into its sham ceasefire discussions with Ukraine. 82 U.S. senators have come together with a bipartisan sanctions package that has the potential to cripple Russia’s ability to sell its oil to its two biggest customers – China and India.
As if that’s not trouble enough for Russia, Europe is finally getting serious about taking on a Russia gone rogue. Zelensky recently met with Germany’s new Chancellor, Friedrich Mertz, who promised both to step up materiel supplies to Ukraine, and to help Ukraine produce their long range weapons.
So, when Trump told Zelensky that Zelensky didn’t have any cards to play, he was mistaken. And Zelensky might have more cards up his sleeve. While Putin wages a WW1-type of war, sending wave after wave of poor ethnic Russian boys to their deaths, Zelensky is playing a much more refined game. In fact, the nimble Ukrainian armed forces are redefining modern warfare, as Putin’s stolid generals look on in bewilderment.
But Trump was right to force Zelensky and Putin to the bargaining table. Trump’s strategy seems clear enough. He wants this war – a war he reasonably asserts wouldn’t have happened if he had been in power – to be over. It interferes with the ambitious plans he has for his country – plans that will also benefit other participating nations. Trump’s campaign promises to stay out of the “forever wars”, such as the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that long plagued America, are well remembered by his followers. So, his pursuit of a 30-day ceasefire, during which time Russia and Ukraine would be expected to engage in serious negotiations for a permanent peace, is eminently reasonable. But while Trump is prepared to give Putin much of what he wants, he is not prepared to let Putin subjugate Ukraine. And he is not ready to let Putin make a fool of him.
But, as previously mentioned, that appears to be what Putin intends to do. There are clear signs that Russia is building up for a major summer offensive. They might be massing as many as 50,000 troops on the Russia/Ukraine border in anticipation of an attack. His intention appears to be to string Trump along, while ramping up the war.
How all of this will turn out is anyone’s guess. Perhaps Putin will get the victory that he seeks. But more likely he will regret not taking Trump’s offer when it was still there for the taking. As the song goes: “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.”
Historian and political commentator, Victor Davis Hanson, explains Trump’s strategy and why Putin is refusing to make the deal Trump wants him to take in this short video.
In brief, Putin is in a tough spot. He invaded in 2022 to quickly subjugate Ukraine. However, instead, Ukraine has fought the once-mighty Russia to a draw. Now, years into a war he expected to last a week, all Putin has to show in return for a million casualties, and the loss of much of his country’s treasure, are a few miles of muddy fields, and a few blasted cities and villages. Unfortunately, Putin believes that he must capture more Ukrainian territory or his regime won’t survive. It is what he is thinking of – not the million Russian lives he has wasted.
But Ukraine is not about to let him have more. Their recent audacious drone attack on major Russian airbases well inside Russia, and the Kerch bridge operation, are proof of their determination to hang on to Ukraine’s hard-won sovereignty. They know exactly what it means to live in the “embrace” of the Russian bear. And they want none of it.
And Trump now appears to have run out of patience with Putin.
We have no idea how this war will end. Although the invasion revealed that Russia clearly does not occupy the same superpower status as America and China, and the much-feared Russian army is obviously much less powerful than it was thought to be, Russia remains a dangerous and unpredictable foe to its neighbours. If Russia does ultimately prevail, Lithuania, Finland, Poland, and the others have uncertain futures.
But more likely, the hostilities will eventually wind down. A line will be drawn somewhere in eastern Ukraine, like the “temporary” border separating North and South Korean (a line drawn more than 70 years ago). The 3/4 or so of Ukraine that remains will become permanently European. Ukrainians will despise everything Russian.
Putin started the war to reincorporate Ukraine back into Mother Russia. He will have achieved the exact opposite. He also railed against the eastern expansion of NATO. With Sweden and Finland ending generations of neutrality to join NATO as a direct result of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin will also have achieved the exact opposite of his stated aims. With the rearming of Europe and the strengthening of NATO, Putin has ironically done Europe a great service – again, the exact opposite of what he wanted. And with his campaign to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, Putin has turned his own beloved Russia into exactly the fascist dictatorship that he claims to oppose.
If Putin had only read Trump’s “Art of the Deal” he would have understood the message and quit while he still had a chance of convincing his increasingly alarmed Russian audience that his ill-fated invasion somehow made sense.
Brian Giesbrecht is a retired judge and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
