Playing for time, Vladimir Putin is toying with Donald Trump

Not long ago, Donald Trump remarked of Volodymyr Zelensky: “The only thing he was good at was playing Biden like a fiddle.” Grossly unfair, plainly – but might the same thing be said of how Vladimir Putin is getting a tune of his own composition out of the Trump ceasefire plan?

It certainly feels that way. Thanks in part to the US pauses in the provision of intelligence and military assistance to Kyiv, President Putin’s forces have been making some headway on the battlefield. Indeed, such has been Russian success on the Kursk front that President Trump has issued a poignant plea on his Truth Social social media platform for Mr Putin to spare the lives of “thousands” of Ukrainian troops surrounded by the Russian military.

Whether he shows mercy or not, President Putin is playing for time in his dealings with the president, and almost toying with his US counterpart. It is a rather pathetic, as well as a dangerous, development.

Somehow, Mr Putin – in charge of a collapsing war economy and having suffered huge losses on the battlefield among his conscripted soldiers, has manoeuvred himself into a position of bargaining strength. Or, rather, he has been gifted such an advantage by President Trump himself, who insists on treating President Putin not only as an equal but as an attractive partner to do business with, to be pleased and appeased, and almost an ally.

Long before he won the presidential election, Mr Trump was bragging that he would finish the Ukraine war in a day and was casting aspersions about US aid to Ukraine. It became apparent in his first term how transactional Mr Trump was in his dealings with his supposed Nato allies, and that his commitment to the Atlantic alliance was contingent on his own whims. Since his election, he has become even more hostile to Europe, actively sabotaging the Ukrainian war effort and, knowingly or not, repeating Kremlin propaganda about President Zelensky being a “dictator without elections”.

In these ceasefire negotiations, Mr Trump became the counterpart who despises his “ally”, Ukraine; demeans the other Europeans; forces concessions on the Ukrainians; asks nothing much from Russia; and is desperate to get any kind of deal, no matter how dishonourable, signed off.

Rarely has Mr Trump threatened President Putin with any consequences for not agreeing to the Trump plan, let alone justice for the victims of his war of aggression and other crimes against humanity. You get the impression that President Trump would accept the annihilation of Ukraine with equanimity, as the price of peace and his “deal”. To be blunt, any fool can make peace by surrendering – and it’s even easier if you’re surrendering on someone else’s behalf.

Such is the state of the ceasefire talks. The ball was in President Putin’s court, but it has been served back at his leisure, and Mr Trump will find the return a tricky one – because he is not as skilled a player as he makes out.

One problem he has is that President Zelensky, popular with his people, may not accept the Trump/Putin ceasefire terms and so fights on, with European backing and without US help. Ukraine, as President Zelensky tried to point out during his infamous exchange of words with Mr Trump and vice-president JD Vance in the Oval Office, is a nation fighting for its survival and, according to many, against genocide.

In February 2022, the Russian “special military operation” was supposed to overrun its weaker neighbour within weeks, if not days, with Mr Zelensky fleeing into exile. Yet the Ukrainians confounded expectations. Even now, the Russians have only managed to occupy one-fifth of Ukraine. The notion of this proud nation subjugating itself into a compliant partner of Moscow is absurd.

Denying President Trump the opportunity to impose an unjust peace on his land against the will of his people is the one really powerful card that President Zelensky now holds – and it is a potent one. It is why Mr Trump and his allies press for fresh elections in Ukraine, and why they are prepared to betray the country they once promised, as a nation, to help defend.

Where once president John F Kennedy declared that “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty”, President Trump is ready to sacrifice any friend pretty much for the sake of his ego and a fanciful dream of partnership with the dictator Mr Putin. Not a complete surprise for anyone who’s been paying attention to Mr Trump’s progress, but how sad it is to see the US fall so far.