Russia and the Ukraine adopt similar tactics with Trump: Make beautiful and take it slowly

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Isabel Coles, The Wall Street Journal 5 min Read 02 Apr 2025, 12:28 pm ist Ukrainian soldiers training in the country’s east recently. Photo: Serhii Korovany for WSJ summary as a ceasefire talk, Moscow and Kyiv hope that the president’s patience is out with the other first. President Trump’s pursuit of Breakneck diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine clashes with Moscow and Kyiv’s Go-Shlow approach. Russia places sticks in the wheels of Trump’s ceasefire, plays for time while pushing its profits on the battlefield and offending maximum concessions in negotiations. Moscow all the time insists that it want peace. After you quickly agreed to the proposals of the US ceasefire, Ukraine is less eager to report on a greasy economic agreement proposed by the White House, which would hand over significant control over the country’s resource wealth. While publicly connecting to a mineral transaction, Kyiv tries to buy time to improve the conditions. Both seem to be on Trump, which is first eliminated with the other once. Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has a flexibility and willingness to accommodate Trump, says former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, “but he is not about to connect his country’s future on the issue of the critical mineral plus hydrocarbon sources.” Russian President Vladimir Putin is building a Potemkin village for Trump, Herbst said. “Whatever the gestures for Trump – it’s all to display,” he said. The diplomatic maneuvering by Russia and Ukraine reflects their efforts to keep Trump going without fully falling on his demands. Ukraine wants to end the war without capitulating to Russia or surrendering its economic independence to the American Russia, the Ukraine wants to dominate and prevent its integration with the West-and believe it has the upper hand in the three-year war. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday that Moscow could not accept the US proposal for solving the war in its current form, indicating that a settlement is still a long way. He said the US does not address the war’s “causes” of the war, Russian short -hand for efforts to integrate Ukraine with the West and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military presence in Eastern Europe. Russia’s army, meanwhile, falls at several warm places along the front lines of 800 miles and according to Ukrainian officials, preparing large spring offers in the north and south of the country. Kyiv can only hope that the Trump administration will over time realize that Russia is not serious about peace and loses the patience with Putin, said Daniel Fried, a former US ambassador to Poland and a fellow of the Atlantic Council. “Time can work for Ukraine if Trump wants an agreement quickly and Putin is the obstacle,” he said. “If Trump decides to be played, he could respond badly.” Until then, however, Kyiv was trying to anger Trump while resisting the pressure to sign a fresh concept of an economic agreement that would make the US profits from Ukrainian economic projects on metals, oil, gas and other natural resources, as well as infrastructure projects, including ports and pipelines. The scope of the new concept, which aimed to help billions to sell billions since the start of the war, has led some analysts to conclude that Trump may want to offer an agreement on which Ukraine cannot agree to blame Zelensky for its failure. The Minister of Economics in Ukraine requested the country’s parliament last week not to publicly discuss the agreement, saying that it would harm the talks with the US on Friday about the concept, Zelensky said he had no time to review it properly. “I don’t want to, you know, arouse this new wave,” he told reporters. Despite the careful approach of Ukraine, Trump warned Zelensky to try out of the agreement this weekend. “If he does, he has some problems – big problems,” he told reporters about Air Force One. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said on Tuesday that Ukraine was committed to reaching an economic agreement with the US, and that he was in consultation with Washington to come to a ‘mutually acceptable’ text. The cost of making Trump angry is just too clear to Kyiv. The US suspended the flow of military aid and some intelligence part with Ukraine to an ominous meeting in the Oval Office during which Zelensky protested with Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The relationship had already had a rocky beginning, with Trump setting fire to Zelensky, after saying that the US president had fallen due to Russian disinformation. Since then, Zelensky has changed. After regretting the Fracas in a letter to Trump, last month Ukrainian negotiators agreed to an American proposal for an immediate ceasefire, which placed the ball in Putin’s court. Last week, Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea, although the agreement was little advantage for Kyiv. “They agreed with everything that Trump suggested regarding the ceasefire-inclusive ceasefire, which is not much in the interests of Ukraine,” said Herbst, the former US ambassador of Ukraine. Putin, on the other hand, stopped repeatedly. In response to the US proposal for a comprehensive ceasefire, Russia said many issues must be worked out first. On the Black Sea Wear Trust, Russia said it would only comply with the conditions once some sanctions were lifted. Trump, who promised to end the war within 24 hours of holding office, began to show frustration with the Kremlin’s approach. Last week, he acknowledged that Putin may be playing for time, referring to his own experience with the negotiation of real estate transactions. In his most powerful rebuke so far, Trump told NBC News that he was “agreed” and threatened to impose secondary rates on Russian oil after Putin Zelensky’s credibility attacked and asked for new leadership in Kyiv. The Kremlin seems to work increasingly to force a change in the leadership of Ukraine through the election, as Russia’s military does not subject the country. Trump himself strengthened the attack on the attack by calling Zelensky a dictator “without election, although the polls show that most Ukrainians are against holding a voice until the war is over. Kremlin spokeswoman Dmitri Peskov said a call between Putin and Trump could be arranged at any time. “We continue to work with the US side, firstly to build our bilateral relations, which was severely damaged during the previous administration,” he said on Monday. So far, Russia has paid no price for the downtime, while Kyiv’s willingness to stop on Trump’s conditions has brought little tangible profit. “It seems that all possible sticks for Kyiv and roots for Moscow are reserved,” says Volodymyr Dubovyk, director of the Center for International Studies in Odesa, Ukraine. Under pressure to sign the mineral transaction is the best option of Ukraine to negotiate Washington to improve the conditions, Dubovyk said. But if Washington insisted on the agreement in his latest form, Kyiv will be confronted with a dilemma: Sign the agreement and hope that it will not be implemented in the future, or refuse and provoke anger from the White House. Write to Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com, capture all the politically news and updates on live currency. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates and live business news. More Topics #russia Ukraine War Coin Special