WASHINGTON — After speaking for more than two hours Thursday with President Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump said he planned to meet with the Russian leader in Hungary in “two weeks or so” to discuss ways to bring an end to Moscow’s three-year invasion of Ukraine.
Trump held what he termed a “productive” call with his Russian counterpart a day before he was set to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, who is expected to make the case that the United States should give Kyiv weapons capable of striking deep inside Russia.
But after days of suggesting he would allow the sale of Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv, Trump abruptly expressed trepidation over further arming Ukraine, signaling that he might back off if Putin proves willing to negotiate a diplomatic end to the conflict.
“We talked about it a little bit,” Trump said, describing his discussion with Putin. “We need Tomahawks for the United States of America, too.”
Trump went on to say that Putin did not want him to provide the missiles. “Tomahawk is a vicious weapon,” Trump said. “It’s a vicious, offensive, incredibly destructive weapon. Nobody wants Tomahawks shot at them.”
The decision to hold the call with Putin, after days of expressing his increasing frustration over the Russian leader’s unwillingness to take substantive steps toward peace, and on the eve of meeting with Zelenskyy, signaled a familiar pattern for Trump’s handling of the war.
On multiple occasions this year, Trump has come right to the edge of imposing penalties on Russia or giving powerful new military aid to Ukraine, only to speak with Putin and raise hopes for a diplomatic solution — so far with little to show for it.
In the spring, Trump accused Putin of “playing with fire” in his conduct of the war and said he was considering imposing sanctions on Russia, only to end up saying he needed two more weeks to know if Putin was serious about negotiations. He never imposed the sanctions.
Trump set another deadline in early August for Putin to end the war. Rather than impose penalties, Trump met with the Russian leader in Alaska, emerging to proclaim that they had made headway toward peace. But Putin continued his assault on Ukraine and has shown little public willingness since then to back off.
Trump’s critics said he was again falling into a trap of rewarding Putin with a summit meeting without being assured of getting anything in return, allowing Russia to keep delaying and fighting the war on its terms.
“After walking away from his Alaska summit with Putin empty-handed, President Trump has now decided to reward Putin again by rolling out the red carpet in Hungary,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “President Trump is repeating the mistakes of the past by not arming Ukraine to the teeth and letting them win this war. Now he’s taking it a step further by rewarding Putin while Ukraine gets nothing.”
But the decision to engage again with Putin showed how emboldened Trump is feeling when it comes to his handling of conflicts overseas. Having achieved what appears to be a substantial victory in bringing about a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Trump is now throwing himself again into peacemaking in Ukraine while also speaking openly about military action against Venezuela.
“We hope we’re going to get it stopped,” Trump said of the Ukraine war. “Because of my relationship with President Putin, I thought this would be very quick.”
“Who would think I did Middle East before I did this?” Trump added.
After his meeting with Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, Trump said, he will send his senior advisers, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to meet with Putin’s senior officials.
Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Putin, told Russian news agencies that envoys from the two countries would meet “without delay” to lay the groundwork for the summit.
Trump then is expected to meet with Putin in Budapest, in a summit hosted by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Their aim, Trump said in a social media post, will be to “see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.”
But the meeting with Putin is far from a sure thing, according to foreign policy experts, who cautioned that it likely hinged on the success of the meeting with Trump’s and Putin’s senior officials.
“I can easily see it falling apart as they grapple with the actual issues,” said John E. Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. But Herbst also said it was notable that Trump had decided to lean into the conflict.
“Trump has said since before he was elected he wants endurable peace,” Herbst said. “He has put his reputation behind that concept. To allow himself to be played by Putin indefinitely doesn’t serve his interests.”
Before talking to Putin on Thursday, Trump blamed the Russian leader for the continuous attacks on Ukraine that have undercut his efforts to broker peace. He has also emphasized the difficulty of negotiating with Putin, even suggesting that Putin had at times misled him and his senior aides.
“I’m very disappointed because Vladimir and I had a very good relationship, probably still do,” Trump said Tuesday at the White House. “I don’t know why he continues with this war.”
But he struck a much more cordial tone after his call with Putin on Thursday. He said the Russian leader had congratulated him on his diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. Trump said he believed his success in negotiating a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza would help him in brokering an end to the fighting in Ukraine.
He added that Putin had expressed gratitude for the work of Trump’s wife, Melania, who has held talks with Putin in an effort to secure the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia and separated from their families during the war.
“He was very appreciative, and said that this will continue,” Trump said in the post. “We also spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over.”
William B. Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said the administration was at risk of repeating a familiar cycle with Putin.
“Here we go again,” Taylor said after reading Trump’s summary of his call with Putin. “We can hope that we’ve learned how Putin works.”
“There’s no sign that Putin is interested in ending this war,” he said, adding that he hoped Trump could put pressure on Putin like he was able to with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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