“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on.”
Those were the stark words of Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday, as he prepared to leave a conference of allies in Paris, warning that the cease-fire deal that President Trump repeatedly vowed he would secure in “24 hours” may not prove attainable after all.
Mr. Rubio’s threat raised urgent questions about how the United States would navigate the largely stalled negotiations with Russia — and about what would happen if they collapse.
Do Mr. Rubio and Mr. Trump simply wash their hands of the peace effort, and walk away? The option was implicit in Mr. Rubio’s warning that “it’s not our war,” followed by the reminder that “we have other priorities to focus on.”
Or are they actually washing their hands of Ukraine itself? That message was implicit in Mr. Trump’s confrontation with President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in February, when he and Vice President JD Vance made it clear to the world that the three-year wartime partnership between Washington and Kyiv was shattered.
That meeting ended, famously, with Mr. Zelensky being expelled from the White House, enormously pleasing one man: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Whatever Mr. Rubio’s meaning, his words were the latest American gift to Mr. Putin’s cause. At every turn since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, he or his top national security aides have issued statements that played to Russia’s advantage: taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table, repeatedly declaring that Ukraine would have to give up territory and even blaming Ukraine for the invasion itself.
On Friday, Mr. Trump himself suggested that the United States could walk away from the conflict, much as it did when frustrated in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
“If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’” Mr. Trump said. “And we’re just going to take a pass. But hopefully we won’t have to do that.”
He never mentioned Mr. Putin by name.
“This is exactly what Putin wants,’’ said Fiona Hill, the Putin biographer who led the Russia and Europe section of the National Security Council during Mr. Trump’s first term, before quitting and testifying against him in his first impeachment inquiry.
Mr. Trump’s “priority is to be able to deal directly with Russia, to put Ukraine to one side and proceed with business and other deals with Russia,” Ms. Hill said. “That is the trajectory we are on, and it’s the trajectory that Trump has always wanted to be on. He’s been very consistent on this.”
Indeed, in an interview with The New York Times in the spring of 2016, when he was first running for president, Mr. Trump described Ukraine as Europe’s problem. “I’m all for Ukraine; I have friends that live in Ukraine,” he said.
But Mr. Trump added: “When the Ukrainian problem arose, you know, not so long ago, and we were, and Russia was getting very confrontational, it didn’t seem to me like anyone else cared other than us. And we are the least affected by what happens with Ukraine because we’re the farthest away.”
That remained his philosophy in his first term, when he withheld arms shipments until the Ukrainians would announce investigations into Joseph R. Biden Jr., the man he thought would run against him in 2020. That, of course, was the core of the impeachment charges filed against him in the House, which he prevailed over in the Senate.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth struck a similar tone in February, when he declared on his first official trip to Europe that Ukraine would not enter NATO for the foreseeable future, that Russia would likely keep the 20 percent or so of Ukraine it had seized, and that any peacekeeping or “tripwire” force in Ukraine to monitor a cease-fire would not include Americans.
Mr. Hegseth was chastised by some senior Republicans, including Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who called it a “rookie mistake.” But it turned out to be an accurate summation of the administration’s position.
European officials who were familiar with the discussions in Paris on Thursday with Mr. Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s negotiator in Russia, said that the basic stance of the United States had not changed.
The United States does have a serious cease-fire plan, they say, and it is essentially the one that Ukraine agreed to in mid-March. (Partial cease-fires that the administration thought they had negotiated — one to prevent attacks on energy infrastructure, and another in the Black Sea — have never taken hold.) But the Russians have dragged their feet, insisting on new conditions, including the “de-Nazification” of the Ukrainian government — code for replacing Mr. Zelensky.
Mr. Rubio’s statement stood in stark contrast to Vice President JD Vance’s remarks in Rome a few hours later, as he met with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“We do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this brutal war to a close,” he said, remarks that appeared out of sync with Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio. In fact, it is hard to find anyone else on Mr. Trump’s national security team who seems to share Mr. Vance’s public optimism, which may have been designed to push some kind of agreement over the finish line.
While it is hard to decode the administration’s game plan, its direction seems clear, based on public comments and conversations reported by European officials who have been racing to figure out how to support Ukraine without Washington’s help.
Until a month ago, Mr. Trump almost always talked about the Russian leader in glowing terms, as a pragmatist just looking to make a profitable deal. Mr. Trump insisted that the Russian leader had such respect for him that he never would have engaged in a war with Ukraine if Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election.
That began to change as Mr. Putin dragged his feet, throwing one obstacle after another in the way of a cease-fire. At various points, Mr. Trump even threatened to impose tariffs against Russia.
But when the tariff lists came out last week, Russia was one of the few countries to escape them. Kevin Hassett, Mr. Trump’s economic adviser, said that it made no sense to slap tariffs on a country while in peace negotiations. Ukraine, though, did make the list.
Mr. Trump’s distrust of Mr. Zelensky remains as strong as ever. “I’m not a fan,” he told Ms. Meloni in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday.
There is virtually no serious discussion underway at the White House or on Capitol Hill about the next package of arms for Ukraine when the current support, which was pushed through in the last months of the Biden administration, runs its course, according to congressional supporters of Ukraine.
European officials say they have not even received assurances that the United States will continue its extensive intelligence sharing for Ukraine, which has been key to its ability to target Russian troops and infrastructure.
In fact, when the White House talks about its relationship with Ukraine these days, it is usually in terms of what it is getting, not what it plans to give. Since the Oval Office blowup, the United States and Ukraine have been renegotiating a deal for American investment and access to Ukrainian minerals, rare earths and other mining projects.
It has taken the better part of six weeks to rewrite the deal that was left unsigned at the White House that day. But Mr. Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week that they would sign a substitute agreement next Thursday.
The deal Mr. Trump really covets is one with Russia. But getting there requires getting past Ukraine — either by declaring a cease-fire, or just setting the problem aside.
In several interviews, including one with Tucker Carlson, Mr. Witkoff described the benefits of a broader relationship with Russia, one that would essentially normalize relations. When Mr. Carlson asked about Mr. Putin’s broader ambitions to take all of Ukraine and perhaps seek to reabsorb some of the former Soviet republics, Mr. Witkoff dismissed the idea. He said he was “100 percent” certain that Mr. Putin has no desire to overrun Europe, or even to control Ukraine.
“Why would they want to absorb Ukraine?” he asked. “That would be like occupying Gaza.”
The line shocked European officials. Mr. Putin himself, of course, has described in lengthy articles and speeches why he wants to absorb Ukraine. He often speaks of restoring the Russia of Peter the Great’s era. Over the past 20 years, he has invaded Georgia, taken Crimea, and denied vociferously that he had Kyiv in his sights — up to the days before he sought to overthrow the government there in a ground, cyber and air attack in February 2022.
The fundamental question now after Friday’s comments by Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio is whether the United States plans to leave the defense of Ukraine entirely to the Ukrainians and Europe, while Mr. Trump switches sides and pursues a rapprochement with Russia.
Some experts argue that even if Mr. Trump makes that huge shift, it likely will not work. They doubt Mr. Putin is ready to limit his ties to China, Iran and North Korea — countries that fuel the war effort with technology, drones and, in North Korea’s case, troops.
“Even if Trump’s overtures to Putin yield a superficial thaw in the U.S.-Russian relationship, Putin’s fundamental mistrust of the West will make a genuine reconciliation impossible,’’ Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote this week in Foreign Affairs. “He cannot be sure that Trump will successfully push Europe to restore ties with Russia, and he knows that, in 2028, a new U.S. administration may simply make another policy U-turn.”
David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.
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