Is Putin’s Waiting Game Working?

Donald Trump not only wants to buy diesel from Vladimir Putin — he’s suggesting Europeans start buying energy again from Russia, too. It’s a stunning reversal: Just a few years ago, major European countries like Germany were dangerously dependent on Moscow for cheap energy. It was the United States that called out that dependence.

Europe’s governments, some of them deeply unpopular, were predictably dismayed by Trump’s recent comments. But the continent’s ascendant and Russia-friendly far right cheered. Today I write about why this might be less a story about a surprise reversal of U.S. strategy and more one about Putin’s long-term strategy paying off.

Is Putin’s Ukraine strategy finally about to pay off?

For years, the war in Ukraine has effectively been a stalemate. The front has moved at a crawl, and at an appalling cost.

Western countries remained more or less united in supporting Ukraine against Russia, until Trump returned to office early last year. Since then, American military and financial aid to Ukraine has fallen sharply, shifting much of the burden to Europe.

Now, another turning point may be at hand.

Over the weekend, following his decision to waive some U.S. sanctions and buy Russian diesel, Trump went a step further. As my colleagues report, he has proposed that European countries resume buying Russian natural gas.

That idea has been categorically ruled out in many corners of Europe. But not in all of them. Alice Weidel, a leader of the far-right AfD party, told the German Parliament last week that sanctions on Russia were “ruining our own economy.” Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far right, criticized the European Union for leading “an energy war against Russia, when we haven’t got any energy.”

Putin has long believed that his commitment to waging war on Ukraine would outlast the commitment of Western allies to defending Ukraine.

It’s cost him more than a million troops killed or wounded, and counting. But his strategy might finally be paying off.

Putin’s waiting game

When Putin launched the full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he expected it to be a quick war. One reason that didn’t happen was the resolve and unity of Ukrainians to put up a fight. Another was the resolve and unity of Western allies to help.

I spoke with my colleague Anton Troianovski, who covered the invasion as Moscow bureau chief and is now our global affairs correspondent. Anton told me that Putin was taken by surprise that Western countries managed to construct a united front.

That meant not only supplying Ukraine with weapons, money and intelligence. It also meant weaning European countries off cheap Russian gas at a major economic cost to Moscow, but to Europe as well. Germany, the continent’s biggest economy, relied on Russia for more than half the gas it used before the invasion; it now pays more for gas from other countries.

The resulting rise in energy costs, and its economic and political fallout in Western countries, have been at the core of Putin’s strategy to drag the war out, Anton said.

“It’s taking far longer than Putin anticipated,” Anton told me. “But he’s always been convinced that it’s only a matter of time until Western unity on Ukraine splinters.”

That explains why Putin has refused to end the war, time and time again, even as Trump has gone out of his way to offer him concessions.

On the campaign trail, Trump boasted that he could end the war within 24 hours. Three weeks after returning to the White House, he had his first phone call with Putin, followed by more promises of ending the war.

Six months later, Trump gave Putin the red carpet treatment in Alaska and said a cease-fire deal was close.

Then in November, Trump promoted a 28-point peace plan widely seen as favorable to Russia, again promising to end the war.

This shows two things, Anton told me: how far Putin is prepared to mortgage his own country to keep fighting this war in pursuit of his core demands — annexing territory, disarming Ukraine and ruling out any NATO involvement there. And how far Trump is prepared to go to give him what he wants.

The West’s pivot?

Putin has already gotten some of what he wants. Trump is buying Russian diesel, he’s getting even tougher on Ukraine and he’s leaning on Europe to buy Russian gas.

At the same time, many European governments are becoming weaker as populist parties friendlier to Russia are getting stronger (aided by Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at eroding trust in Western governments).

In France, Le Pen is the front-runner in presidential elections next year. In Germany, the pro-Russia AfD is now the most popular party. The rise of far-right parties in Europe has its own homegrown dynamic. But, as Anton put it, “it clearly dovetails with Putin’s efforts to splinter the Western coalition.”

In Washington, the splintering seems far advanced. Trump blames Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for the ongoing war (Zelensky “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” he posted on social media Sunday) and shrugs off Russian bombardments that are causing sharply higher civilian casualties (“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” he said Monday).

The language matters. It points to Trump’s increased determination to force a deal on Zelensky, my colleague David Sanger wrote, “even one written largely on Russia’s terms.”

Which would be the greatest vindication of all for Putin’s strategy.

The latest: More than a week into his war of words with Trump, Zelensky met in Oslo yesterday with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy.

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