Trump’s Ukraine Deal Looks Great — for Putin

US President Donald Trump is proving good to his word. He’s moving fast to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the signs of the last few days suggest that he’s also going in hard — on Kyiv, though, not Moscow.

It’s still too early to know exactly what Trump has in mind, but as I said with regard to his proposal for the US to take over Gaza, it pays to take his statements seriously, even if they don’t tell the whole story. And what he and his administration have said and done on Ukraine over the last 72 hours indicate that they aim to restore relations with Moscow at the expense of Ukraine and Europe.

This would be a choice. America has numerous cards to play in pressuring Moscow toward a genuine peace settlement that limits the rewards for its illegal invasion and secures a lasting ceasefire. But the recent public signaling suggests that Trump has no plans to use them. That makes sense if all you want is a fast deal on any terms, because it’s a lot easier to pressure Ukraine into concessions than Russia.

Trump made back-to-back calls to launch his peace talks, first with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, second with Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine, but with leaders in Europe, not at all. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, was ceding negotiating cards that might have been used in any effort to hold Putin’s feet to the fire.

Ukraine, the former Fox News commentator told North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers in Brussels, won’t be joining NATO, won’t get back the borders it had before Russia began its invasion in 2014, won’t have US troops in any peacekeeping force and won’t continue receiving US aid at previous levels.

It isn’t that any of this is wrong or shocking. Everybody in that room and in Kyiv understands these were concessions likely to be made as part of any eventual peace deal, traded away from similar concessions by Moscow. But none of them would want to give these away first and then negotiate. Trump may or may not be, as described by Hegseth, “the best negotiator on the planet.” But what’s worrying is that he’s certainly good enough not to make the rookie mistakes that these statements would represent, if the goal were to pressure Moscow on Ukraine’s behalf.

As if to underscore his lack of commitment to a sovereign Ukraine, Trump mused in an interview with Fox News that Ukraine may or may not make a deal, and that “they may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday.” The important point for him, he said, was getting back the money the US has spent on the war, by securing $500 billion in mineral rights.

He also seemed to argue that Kyiv shouldn’t have fought back against Putin’s invasion in the first place, saying that this “wasn’t a good war to get into.”

Europe, meanwhile, has simply been ignored. That clearly came as a shock, just days before Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, had said he’d be coming to consult with them on a negotiating strategy. European leaders insisted after Hegseth spoke that no lasting deal can be made without them and that no agreement about Ukraine can be made over its head. Well, that’s exactly what seems to be happening, and there isn’t much Ukraine’s European backers can do about it.

What they did get from Hegseth was a stern lecture and — on the day that the London-based International Institute for Security Studies calculated that Russia now outspends all of Europe on defense in terms of purchasing power parity — a clear message that, from now on, they’ll be on their own on Ukraine. Again, this makes no sense if Trump’s goal is to pressure Putin, but plenty if the idea is to pressure Europe into a Ukraine deal they wouldn’t otherwise accept.

In more detail, Hegseth said European nations should all be spending 5% of their gross domestic product on defense — and that the US priority is now China. Again, there’s no surprise here. The Europeans know they still don’t spend enough on defense. They know, too, that the American security umbrella is drifting east. But it’s equally true that the 5% of GDP target is unrealistic, including for the US, the only NATO member to have reduced the share of its economy it spends on defense over the last decade. That figure now stands at 3.38%.

Perhaps Trump will surprise all and get a good deal that secures a lasting ceasefire and ensures Ukraine’s future as a sovereign state. But for now, let’s tally up who got what in public.

For Putin: His diplomatic isolation from the West broken by the only country that, in his view, really counts — the US. Trump said he hoped to meet with Russia’s leader personally, first in Saudi Arabia, and then in both Moscow and Washington.

Moscow also now has public confirmation from the Trump administration that it won’t provide Ukraine with security guarantees by admitting it to NATO, or by stationing US troops on its territory, or by boosting US military aid, or by covering any European peace keeping force with an Article 5 guarantee that the US would come to their defense if attacked. As Zelenskiy said in response, there can be no genuine security guarantee for Ukraine without US participation.

The Kremlin also now has in Trump a US president who seems to accept its narratives: That Ukraine may not have a future as an independent state and that Putin’s decision to invade a neighboring country wasn’t really Putin’s fault. The Kremlin also looks closer than at any time since 1945 to achieving its forever goal of splitting the US from the European continent. Then as now, the aim was to leave Russia as the dominant military power, able to expand its sphere of influence.

For the US: The return of prisoners that Moscow had in effect taken as hostages on bogus charges (it remains unclear what was offered in exchange) and an agreement in principle to secure $500 billion worth of mineral resources from Ukraine. This would be in recompense for the roughly $100 billion that — according to the best accounting available, from Germany’s Kiel Institute — the US has allocated in aid to Ukraine. The $300 billion figure cited by Trump and Hegseth is nonsense. So, a potential (if unlikely to be realized) return on investment of 400%, squeezed from a destroyed nation in its hour of need.

For Ukraine: So far, nothing but the mortgaging of its economic future to the US.

For Europe: Nothing, except for the clearest indication to date that Trump doesn’t consider its nations as allies. For the Baltic States and Poland in particular, the implications of Trump’s deliberately ambivalent language will be very worrying.

When he was challenged on all of this by reporters, Hegseth said “there is no betrayal there,” but a recognition of reality. This is true only in the sense that the US decisions will change reality. If it isn’t to also be a betrayal, that is now for the Trump administration to prove.

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