Why Trump is struggling to win the rapid fire in Ukraine

When Donald Trump met with President Zelensky in New York last September, the then presidential candidate of the United States exuded the confidence that he could lead the war in Ukraine to an early end. “If we win, I think we will solve it very quickly,” he said.

How fast he meant varied over time. In a television debate a few days before, Trump had promised that “I would resolve him before becoming president.” This was an escalation in its previous commitment in May 2023 to stop the fight in the first 24 hours of its presidency.

Trump has been in office for more than two months and the penny may be beginning to fall into the White House to try to end such a bitter and complex conflict since this can take time.

In a television interview last weekend, the president of the United States admitted that when he promised to end the war in a day, he was “being a bit sarcastic.”

There are many reasons for the slowest progress than the Trump team may have anticipated.

First, the president’s belief in the power of his personal diplomacy and one by one may have been out of place. For a long time he believed that any international problem can be resolved if he sits with another leader and accepts an agreement. Mr. Trump First he spoke with Vladimir Putin on February 12An hour and a half conversation that described as “highly productive.” The two leaders He spoke again on March 18.

But it is clear that these phone calls failed to ensure the high provisional fire of 30 days that Trump wanted. The only substantive concession that expired by Mr. Putin was a promise to end the Russian attacks against Ukrainian energy facilities, a commitment that Ukraine accuses of breaking the commitment to break A few hours after the call.

Second, the Russian president has made it clear that he does not intend to be hurried. His first public comments on negotiations arrived last week at a press conference that was a whole month after his phone call with Trump.

Putin showed that he resolutely opposed the two -stage strategy of the USA. Uu. To look for a high interim fire before talking about a longer term agreement. On the other hand, he said that any conversation must address what he sees as “the fundamental causes of war”, namely, his fears of an expanding alliance of NATO and the very existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state somehow present a threat to the security of Russia. It also established detailed questions and conditions that must be answered and fulfilled before any agreement can be agreed.

Third, the American strategy of directing its initial approach in Ukraine may have been poorly judged. The White House believed that President Zelensky was the obstacle to peace. Western diplomats recognize that the Ukrainian government took to realize how much the world had changed with the arrival of Trump.

But the United States pressure on kyiv that led to the now infamous confrontation in the Oval office, when Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, scratched the Ukrainian leader, consumed time, effort and political capital.

It also broke transatlantic relations, establishing Europe and the United States disagree, another diplomatic problem that took time to establish itself. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin sat down and enjoyed the show, waiting for his time.

Fourth, the pure complexity of the conflict makes resolution difficult. The Ukrainian offer was initially for a high interim fire in the air and in the sea. The idea was that this would be relatively simple to monitor.

But in the talks last week in Jeddah, the United States insisted that any high immediate fire should also include the front line of more than 1200 km long in the east. Instantly, that caused the logistics to verify any high fire is more complicated. This, of course, was rejected by Mr. Putin.

But even its agreement with the most modest proposal, to end attacks against energy infrastructure, is not exempt from problems. It is the details about that proposal that will occupy much of the technical negotiations that are expected to take place in Saudi Arabia on Monday. Experts in military and energy will prepare detailed lists of possible electric or other power plants, which could be protected.

They will also try to agree on which weapons systems should not be used. But remembering the difference between energy and other civil infrastructure can take some time. Remember: Ukraine and Russia are not talking to each other; They are involved separately and bilaterally with the US, which promises to transport between both sides. This adds again at the time.

Fifth, the United States focuses on the economic benefits of a high fire distracted the attention of the priority to end the fighting. Trump has spent time trying to agree on a framework agreement that gives companies access to critical Ukrainian minerals. Some saw this as the United States that invested in the future of Ukraine, others such as extorting the country’s natural resources.

President Zelensky initially argued that he could agree on an agreement only if the United States promised to provide Ukraine for security guarantees to dissuade the future Russian aggression. The White House refused, saying that the presence of US mining companies and workers would be deterrent enough. Finally, Zelensky admitted defeat and said he would agree on a mineral agreement without security guarantees. But despite that, the United States has not yet signed the agreement, waiting again to improve the terms, possibly by including access or even the property of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Finishing wars can be complex and slow. We would not have reached this stage without Trump’s thrust, but progress has not been as fast or simple as he believed. In December 2018, while campaigning for the presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that negotiations with Vladimir Putin would be quite simple. “You need to talk in a very simple way” He told the Ukrainian journalist, Dmytro Gordon. “What do you want, what are your conditions?” And I would say: ‘Here are our points’. We would agree somewhere in the middle. “

Well, in the evidence of the last two months, it can be more difficult than that.