Can Donald Trump get Vladimir Putin to end his war of conquest in Ukraine? Trump has tried sweet-talking Putin; he’s now trying some financial sticks rather than carrots. Trump has finally united the Europeans behind him now that Trump has adapted to Putin’s intransigence.
Over the last few days, the Western leaders have hammered out a framework for peace negotiations, assuming Putin comes to the table at all. Marco Rubio told Jesse Waters last night that only Trump can make that happen, and that his desire for peace should be a point of pride for all Americans:
Trump’s efforts for peace can hardly be questioned. He has helped end armed conflict in a half-dozen flash points since taking office six months ago. However, his attempts to pin Putin down on peace in Ukraine have only appeared to trigger Putin’s “escalate to de-escalate” strategy, and this week has been no exception. NATO had to scramble fighters when Russian air attacks came within a mile of Romanian territory last night:
Two German warplanes were scrambled overnight from Romania after Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack in Ukraine less than a mile from the NATO borderline.
Romania’s Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday that two German Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, stationed at Romania’s Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base as part of NATO’s Enhanced Air Policing mission, were deployed “to monitor the air situation,” but noted that this time no Russian aircraft or projectiles crossed the NATO border.
Despite last week’s talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, Moscow has continued its aerial bombardment of Ukraine, including in an overnight attack that targeted oil and port facilities in the Odesa region on and near the Danube River, which separates the Ukrainian border with the allied NATO nation of Romania.
This looks like Putin’s answer to the latest proposal from the West for security guarantees in exchange for territorial concessions from Ukraine. The proposal, fronted by Trump, would put EU troops on the new Ukraine-Russia border as a tripwire against further aggression. The US would not participate in troop deployments, Trump insists, and Ukraine would not get admitted to NATO:
President Trump on Tuesday offered his assurances that U.S. troops would not be sent to help defend Ukraine against Russia after seeming to leave open the possibility the day before.
Trump also said in a morning TV interview that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO and regaining the Crimean peninsula from Russia are “impossible.”
The Republican president, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders held hours of talks at the White House on Monday aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine. While answering questions from journalists, Trump did not rule out sending U.S. troops to participate in a European-led effort to defend Ukraine as part of security guarantees sought by Zelensky.
Zelensky understandably wants — and needs — European security guarantees in order to move forward even with a cease-fire. That’s especially true after Trump made it clear that he will not demand that Russia hand back Crimea after its 2014 seizure by Putin, and has strongly hinted that Putin will likely keep the Donbas as well.
However, Russia clearly sees this as a NATO-by-proxy move that may or may not include an Article V commitment. Their aerial bombardment so near the current NATO frontier looks very much like an answer to the proposed security framework. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made that more explicit earlier today:
Russia has warned that attempting to resolve security issues relating to Ukraine without the participation of Moscow is a “road to nowhere”, days after European leaders met US President Donald Trump to discuss security guarantees for Kyiv.
“We cannot agree with the fact that now it is proposed to resolve questions of security, collective security, without the Russian Federation. This will not work,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.
“I am sure that in the West and above all in the United States they understand perfectly well that seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia; it’s a road to nowhere.”
Herein lies the problem. Putin may not have a good way to exit from a war with little more than he had when it started. Right now, he can continue to prosecute the war in an attempt to sweeten the deal — unless his financial footing erodes more significantly. Trump has held off on punishing Putin’s trade partners, especially India and China, but Trump has finally made clear that he plans to take those steps and is fully invested in Ukrainian independence and sovereignty, which had not been clear until the last few weeks. Furthermore, Putin’s main source for drones probably dried up in the Iran-Israel Twelve Day War, when the IDF destroyed or damaged the IRGC’s production facilities … and made them a lot more concerned about their own security than Putin’s adventurism.
Putin is running out of time for his escalate-to-de-escalate strategy, and everyone knows it. Lavrov’s comment aside, Russia has refused to come to the table at all until now, and that’s what Trump wants to change. It still means, though, that the West will have to do some horse-trading to end this war, as distasteful as that is, because they lack the will to escalate matters themselves — and not for bad reasons, mind you, as no one wants World War III in Europe. They could bluff that point, but that’s dangerous, and Putin knows that the EU has no real desire to go to war.
As Scott Jennings wisely pointed out, that leaves only the alternative of cutting a deal with Putin, which apparently horrified his CNN colleagues:
WATCH: Scott Jennings just dropped a dose of REALITY about Ukraine on his liberal CNN panel…and they did NOT like it one bit.@ScottJenningsKY laid it out plain: “You have to accept the world as it is. This is not going to end any other way than a negotiated peace.”
“The only… pic.twitter.com/fPPEYXpIpv
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) August 20, 2025
“You have to accept the world as it is. This is not going to end any other way than a negotiated peace.”
“The only people to negotiate with here are the people involved: Putin and Zelenskyy. He met with Putin. He then brings Zelenskyy and the European allies to the White House. It was a show of strength last night.”
“Now the fact that there’s news leaking out that they are discussing security guarantees for Ukraine ought to tell you how serious he is about ending this in a way that meets the administration’s stated goal.”
Oh, it could end in other ways, most of them worse than the current situation. A negotiated settlement with security guarantees would be the least worst outcome. But Trump has to get Putin to the table for good-faith negotiations first, so expect the financial escalations to start soon to make Putin accept this reality as well.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
Help us continue to report on the administration’s peace through strength foreign policy and its successes. Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
