Did Donald Trump abandoned Ukraine?

For Donald Trump, on Monday with Vladimir Putin, Amal has sparked a bright future from the “Defense Trade” between Russia and the United States, “when this” catastrophic “bloodbath” ended.

Yuri Ushakov, the foreign policy advisor to the Russian leader, said that the two -hour conversation tone was so friendly that none of the president wanted to be the first to put the phone.

To the Ukrainians and allies in Europe, I felt treason.

Not only that the US president does not seem to have any pressure on Russia to achieve a ceasefire. According to his reading of the call, Trump also explained that the United States was bending as a mediator in the efforts made to finish warAnd left Moscow and Kiev to know the same things.

Ukraine President Volodimir Zelinski warned of the consequences. He said in a statement after speaking with Trump: “It is very important for all that the United States does not distance the talks and strive for peace, because the only person who benefits from this is Putin,” he said in a statement after speaking with Trump.

For observers, a turning point was more than three years after the conflict. It seems that the president who promised to end the Ukraine war on the first day of his second term was washing his hands from the effort and left Ukraine to have mercy. The invitation confirmed that the worst European concerns: that the American president, who was sealed by Pothers Putin, was ready to reach Moscow and sell Kiev.

Even Trump had a proposal for those who could replace the United States as a mediator: Pope Liu XIV. “The Vatican … mentioned that he would be very interested in hosting negotiations,” wrote on Truth Social.

In an invitation to European leaders after he spoke to Putin, Trump indicated that it was not limited to his chapter, but he also did not intend to apply additional pressure on Moscow while bilateral talks between Russia Ukraine was ongoing, according to two people who were briefed in the conversation.

This represents Volte’s face of Trump. A little more than a week ago, he joined other Western leaders in the threat of imposing new punitive measures on Russia if it failed to carry out the immediate ceasefire.

Trump himself admitted to reporters later on Monday that he had not even repeated his former demands Putin to stop his attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine.

“This invitation with Trump was a victory for Putin,” said Stephen Bever, a former American ambassador to Ukraine at the Security and International Cooperation Center at Stanford University. “He has made it clear that the ceasefire will not happen any time soon, so that Russia can continue the war. Any additional sanctions will be applied.”

Trump and Putin seem to have agreed that Russia and Ukraine will hold direct talks, and continue Negotiations in Istanbul From last Friday.

Putin said Russia is ready to work with Ukraine on “a memorandum on a possible future peace agreement.” This will include “the principles that will have a peace agreement” and “a potential ceasefire for a certain period of time, if certain agreements are reached.”

However, there was blocking about what Putin was talking about.

“No one knows what it is, what is the reason for that (and) why it matters,” said a senior Ukrainian official who is familiar with calls for the idea of ​​the memo. Zelinski told himself late on Monday that the memo proposal was “unknown” to him.

“The Russians will hold low-level talks, exchange various documents, and at the same time they continue to fight,” said Bill Taylor, who served as the American ambassador to Ukraine from 2006-2009. “How long will Trump bear all this procrastination?”

The American desire to disengage for weeks has been marked by Trump himself, as well as Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, who repeatedly expressed his frustration with Russia and Ukraine equally. Vans told the correspondents on Monday that the United States must eventually say: “This is not our war.”

“We will try to end it, but if we cannot finish it, we will say in the end,” You know what? It was worth trying, but we no longer do it anymore. “

Trump repeated that when he told the White House journalists that something would “happen” to end the war. “And if it was not, I will come away and they will have to continue. This was a European situation, and it should have remained a European situation.”

Some experts believe that Trump’s desire to disengage is understood. “The approach of each side was to make Trump crazy on the other side, and that was destroyed in essence,” said Peter Silizkin from the Stimson Center Research Center. “If he can force the two sides to talk to each other and get themselves out of the image, this may be necessary to move things.”

But Trump has now seemed more interested in rapprochement with Moscow than to resolve the war.

“Everything else is subject to this goal.”

Putin can reflect the apparent preparation of Russia’s confidence in military progress in its widespread conquest of Ukraine, as offensive operations along large sections of the confrontation line.

A Ukrainian military spokesman said that “heavy battles” were revolving around the strategic city of Boucrovsk in eastern Ukraine, and the near north of Tertesk. The soldiers said the highway, which works as a decisive logistical center, was under a regular drone attack, threatening Ukraine’s operations in the region.

Dibstati, a Ukrainian analytical group close to the army, described the situation as “unfavorable” for Kiev’s forces and said that Russian forces “pay positions and approach the administrative borders of the Donetsk region” – one of the one -sided areas in 2022, but it does not fully control.

The Deepstate map, where the changes on the front line track, the Russians are less than 5 kilometers from those limits where the fighting is more intense.

The entire eastern Donetsk region – alongside the Luhanssk areas, Jacon and Zaburisvia, and the other three regions that were included in 2022 – are still a major military target for Moscow. Her army has suffered heavy losses in seeking to achieve this goal. In talks with Ukrainian officials in Türkiye last week, Russia made any ceasefire on Kyiv withdraw all its forces from all four regions.

Rob Lee, an older colleague at the Institute of Foreign Policy Research, said Russia was successful along the confrontation line and was able to recruit soldiers in large numbers.

He said: “On the one hand, I think Russia can maintain the struggle at the present time, given its continuous employment of the volunteers.” “It is possible that Russia’s leadership may believe that they can still improve their position on the battlefield.”

As the summer approaches, the weather conditions will become more suitable for offensive operations, which can benefit Russia, he told me.

“Russia has not achieved the minimum of occupying all regions of Donetsk and Luhansk … so it may try to seize the largest possible land this summer before engaging in negotiations more seriously.”

Participated in additional reports by James Politi in Washington