For all the disarray and unfairness of President Trump’s approach to the war in Ukraine, he is right about a few big things. He is right that the war’s continuing human carnage is a tragedy, given the unlikelihood of a military breakthrough for either side after more than three years of fighting. He is right that ending the war could open the way to economic development in both Ukraine and Russia and help the global economy, too. And he is right to be frustrated with President Vladimir Putin’s intransigence and recent acceleration of bombing in Ukraine.
But Mr. Trump would be profoundly wrong to walk away from cease-fire talks, as he keeps threatening to do.
An American withdrawal would only encourage a new military push by Mr. Putin, who has staked his authoritarian rule on bringing Ukraine to heel and seizing its territory. Nor would Ukraine surrender. It has developed ways to hold back Russian forces, including through a domestic defense industry that may produce a few million drones this year. Other European powers, including Britain, Germany and France, will also continue to support Ukraine.
Rather than walk away, Mr. Trump has an opportunity to increase the pressure on Russia and Ukraine to agree to a deal. In the past few days, he has even shown signs of doing so (hard as it is to know when his words reflect his intentions). He said on Wednesday that he was “not happy” with Mr. Putin’s recent attacks on Ukraine and said on Monday that he was “absolutely” considering new economic sanctions on Russia.
Both sides have reasons to consider a truce. Ukraine has continued to lose territory, while Russia’s progress has been extremely costly in terms of casualties and destroyed equipment. Over the past year, Russia has gained only about 0.6 percent of Ukraine’s territory, and hundreds of thousands of its soldiers have been wounded or killed, The Washington Post reported. That is not a sustainable ratio.
The outlines of a likely deal are clear enough. Russia would keep territory that it controls in Ukraine’s east and south, including the Crimean Peninsula. It would also receive promises from the West to lift economic sanctions and not to admit Ukraine to NATO. For Ukraine, the West could commit to military and economic support if Russia attacks again and, more immediately, to integrate Ukraine even more closely into the European economy. Ukraine’s resilient, talented population would then have an opportunity to thrive.
These trade-offs would not be pleasant. Mr. Putin’s attack on a democratic neighbor would be rewarded with the acquisition of territory. Yet battlefield results dictate their own reality. Once Western European nations and the United States decided not to send their citizens to fight for Ukraine — an understandable choice — Russia was guaranteed to make gains against its much smaller neighbor. Even so, Ukraine’s resolve has been heroic, and it has prevented Mr. Putin from the sweeping victory most military analysts predicted when the invasion began in February 2022.
We have many objections to Mr. Trump’s Ukraine policy. He has echoed Mr. Putin’s lie that Ukraine started the war, and Mr. Trump humiliated President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in the Oval Office. “The policy since the beginning of the Trump administration has been to put pressure on the victim, Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia,” Bridget Brink, who resigned as U.S. ambassador to Kyiv last month, recently wrote. Ultimately, though, Mr. Trump does not appear to be a committed Putin ally. He just does not seem to care much what happens in Ukraine. He wants the United States to stop paying for billions of dollars’ worth of military aid. Above all, he wants to look personally strong and successful.
Events have presented him with a chance to achieve that outcome. The key step is to demonstrate resolve against Mr. Putin. After more than a quarter-century in power, the Russian leader has come to believe, with some cause, that he can outfox or outlast American presidents. And Mr. Trump has been, by far, the friendliest president toward him. Absent a show of strength from the United States now, Mr. Putin will rationally assume weakness. He will assume that a more expansive victory awaits him in Ukraine.
From the outset, the Russian president has believed that the world’s democracies were too soft to stay committed to Ukraine. He has staked the outcome of his war on driving a wedge between the United States and Europe — and America losing interest. Neither should happen. On the contrary, Mr. Trump has ways to ratchet up the cost of continued fighting for Russia and support Ukraine.
He has already won Ukraine’s agreement to mine its mineral resources, and he can accelerate the delivery of promised American military supplies. He can impose new sanctions on Russia, as he has threatened. Several Republican senators — including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Charles Grassley of Iowa — support new sanctions. “Putin, in my view, is playing us all,” Mr. Graham said recently. Another option is to persuade the European Union to give Ukraine about $300 billion in frozen Russian assets. Germany announced new support for Ukraine this week. “Nothing less than the peaceful order of our entire continent is at stake,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said.
Whatever the specifics, the goal should be to make Mr. Putin understand that Mr. Trump and European leaders will not abandon Ukraine. The war will remain a slog in which Russia gains small amounts of territory at a very high price.
Mr. Trump likes to cite the ancient military principle of peace through strength. Ronald Reagan popularized the idea in modern times, and he used it to great effect against the Soviet empire that shaped Mr. Putin’s approach to power. Mr. Trump now has an opportunity to display strength and push Russia and Ukraine toward a settlement that would allow him to claim success and, far more important, end this gruesome war.
It would not be the outright defeat that Russia deserves. It would not be a victory, however. Mr. Putin set out to conquer Ukraine and install a puppet government, and he has failed. Instead, Ukraine’s young democracy has survived and sent a message to other would-be conquerors: Wars of aggression rarely result in the thorough victories that aggressors like to imagine.
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