Ukraine: Trump’s latest stalling tactic

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte — Trump has shown “tremendous weakness” in dealing with Putin

(Image credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “testing the West,” said Fred Kaplan in Slate, and once again, President Trump is flunking. When Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska last month and showered him with subservient flattery, Putin saw it as a signal of weakness—and a green light to expand his drone and missile attacks on Ukraine and to extend his belligerence beyond Ukraine’s borders. This month, 19 unarmed Russian drones flew deep into Polish territory; Polish and European officials widely believe the brazen provocation was an intentional probe to test NATO’s air defenses and its willingness to respond should a member state be attacked. Afterward, the Kremlin ratcheted up its provocative rhetoric, with a spokesperson proclaiming that “NATO is at war with Russia.”

Trump, meanwhile, responded to the drone incident with a “disturbing display of nonchalance,” said Marc Champion in Bloomberg. “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones?” he pondered on social media before suggesting it may have been an accident. But last week, Trump provided a tiny sliver of hope by finally calling Russia “the aggressor” and laying out a plan “for pressuring Moscow to the negotiating table.” He said he’s ready to impose “major sanctions” on Russia, so long as the other 31 NATO member states do the same while banning all Russian oil imports. Given Beijing’s influence over Moscow, Trump also called on the alliance to collectively place 50% to 100% tariffs on China until the war in Ukraine ends. Trump has shown “tremendous weakness” in dealing with Putin, said The Washington Post in an editorial, but he “has a point.” Europeans greatly reduced their use of Russian oil and gas, but need to fully wean themselves off those purchases, which help fund Putin’s war effort.

Since when did Trump become a multilateralist? asked Jim Geraghty in National Review. His insistence on NATO consensus looks like just another tactic to buy time for Putin. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who have a “much warmer and fuzzier view of Putin and Russia than the rest of NATO,” will either delay or reject Trump’s plan to boycott all Russian oil and slap huge tariffs on China, and Trump knows it. Putin is flying drones into NATO airspace and killing Ukrainian civilians by the hundreds, but for Trump, “there’s always some excuse, there’s always some delay, there’s always some reason to wait another two weeks.”