Putin is trapped by Trump's misunderstandings

In this video, I discuss the meetings in Alaska and Washington, D.C. about the peace process for Ukraine. I think many people have been too quick to declare the Alaska meeting a victory for Putin. It's interesting how Trump insists on claiming that Putin made concessions he clearly did not make. Either Trump doesn't understand the issues at all, or it's a sophisticated negotiation strategy that resembles entrapment. In either case, it might become a problem for Putin.

Watch the video here or read the transcript below.

Transcript:

Trump and Putin met in Alaska, and after that there was this meeting with Zelensky, Trump, and a group of European leaders in Washington DC. In this video, I want to give my quick assessment of what I think we can take from these negotiations, what's actually going on, and also how close we might be to something that could signal the end of the war. So let's talk about it.

It's been strange following the discussion, starting with with the meeting between Trump and Putin, and then the one with Zelensky, Trump, and the European leaders afterwards. If you follow this war closely and you have developed an understanding of what both sides have been saying throughout, and also what their ultimate war aims are, it's pretty clear that neither side has significantly changed their position. But Trump is trying to take on the role of a mediator, and it's also quite clear that he seems to be under the impression there is actual progress and that the Russians and Ukrainians are getting closer to reaching a compromise.

I think it's difficult to say whether this is a negotiation tactic for Trump or if he simply just doesn't understand the dynamics of the war that he's trying to mediate. But in either case, either he doesn't understand the nuances of the words he's being told, or he just pretends not to understand them.

As an example, there is now this big discussion about Western security guarantees for Ukraine and how those might be organized because Donald Trump has claimed that Putin has accepted security guarantees for Ukraine will be part of a peace deal. The reality is that Putin has not said that. He might have said something that sounds like security guarantees, security assurances, maybe, something like that. But if he did that, then he had something else entirely in mind.

It's pretty clear that Putin has never accepted the idea of NATO soldiers being stationed in Ukraine after the war. The Russian foreign ministry even came out and clarified this position, but that has all been overshadowed by the fact that Donald Trump keeps talking about it.

The reason I know that Putin has not said that is that during the summit in Alaska, he also mentioned the need to address the root causes of the conflict in order to end the war. When Putin talks about addressing the "root causes", that's code speech for Western presence in Eastern Europe. That is the root cause that Putin sees as the reason why there is a war in Ukraine.

So, when he says that this question needs to be addressed, what he really means is that Western countries need to leave Eastern Europe to Russia. And then there can, of course, be a debate about how much of Eastern Europe. What about the countries that are already in NATO? But it's absolutely abundantly clear that it means that NATO should not in any way, shape, or form be engaged in Ukraine, because that is, according to Putin, Russia's sphere of influence. And the root cause is that the West needs to leave that to Russia.

If I could just add an anecdote here to illustrate this viewpoint and what the Russians may have in mind when they say this, then back in the fall of 2021, so about half a year before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I was at a conference where there was an academic from the Russian think tank community. I asked him a question about the sovereignty of smaller states in Eastern Europe and their right to choose their own alliances and foreign relations. His response was that we should think of it like a restaurant. He said, "if you go into McDonald's, you cannot order sushi because that is not on the menu. It's the same with the countries in Eastern Europe and especially Ukraine." The reason there is a confrontation over Ukraine, according to him, is because the Ukrainians have gotten this idea that there is a Western option on the table.

So yes, from his perspective, technically speaking, Ukraine has sovereignty and independence to choose their own foreign relations. But the only option that there should be to choose between should be Russia. His point was that the confrontation is therefore the West's fault because the West hasn't made it abundantly clear to the Ukrainians that joining Western Europe is not a viable path for them moving forward.

This was the viewpoint of a Russian academic at the end of 2021, and it's essentially the same thing that Putin is saying when he talks about the need to address the root causes of the conflict.

But Donald Trump does not really pick up on that. So he just hears Putin saying something about the need to address the root causes. And he's like, "yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Let's absolutely do that because we don't want this war to just begin all over again." So he's thinking, "well, I'm just going to create peace here and then you guys can figure out the root causes." That seems to be the approach that Donald Trump has to this.

It's actually a little funny because it's like there are giant misunderstandings on the international scale here where politics seems to be decided by people who just have different communication styles and don't understand what the others are trying to say.

Putin actually has a very vague and ambiguous way of expressing himself. It's often left up to the listener to figure out what Putin actually meant. What did he actually say? Even when he makes those very dramatic statements that sound intimidating or sound like a significant threat, then in reality, it's very often unclear what he actually meant or whether he has actually committed himself to doing anything if he doesn't get what he wants.

But Trump, on the other hand, he has a much more direct style. if you want Trump to receive a message, then you have to present it to him in a straightforward way. He doesn't want to have to do too much thinking to understand the context or imagine all the subtle nuances in what you're trying to say.

But these two communication styles, they just don't go well together in this case. It seems to me that that's how we end up in these situations where Trump suddenly claims that Putin has agreed to something that is extremely unlikely, such as Russia being okay with NATO's Article 5-style security guarantees for Ukraine, or that Putin is willing to meet Zelensky in person within the coming weeks.

Because both of these things are highly unlikely. I don't think I've seen anyone who actually follows Russia who believes that Putin has genuinely made these concessions.

So in that sense, I say that what's come out of these two high-level meetings so far has been basically nothing. But Donald Trump has been trying to play the role of a mediator. And either he has completely misunderstood what people have been saying to him, or he's pretending that he has misunderstood.

So it's interesting that Donald Trump apparently keeps misunderstanding Putin and acting as if Putin has made bigger concessions concessions that he actually has. Because this is actually turning into a problem for the Russians.

After the Alaska summit, I think a lot of people were very quick to call it a win for Putin and to claim that he played it really well. But I think the longer-term consequences might not be so great for Russia, because I don't really see that Putin achieved much at this summit in terms of actually addressing the problems that Russia has and the questions about Ukraine. In fact, when Trump completely misunderstands or misinterprets some of these positions that Putin comes with, then that could cause issues because it may be really hard to walk back on those comments or to clarify them to Trump afterwards.

And that actually opens the door to something interesting and maybe even something promising. There is now a discussion happening about what security guarantees for Ukraine might specifically look like after this war is over, or maybe even sooner. Maybe some of these things could start taking shape already now. And the more we dig into these details, and the more the public attention is drawn to these questions, the harder it becomes for Putin to walk away from that later.

So in that sense, what's happening is actually meaningful, because it puts pressure on Putin to deliver on those things that Trump thinks that Putin has already agreed to.

The same actually goes for the idea of meeting Zelensky. Putin absolutely does not want to meet Zelensky because doing so would give Zelensky legitimacy. And the last thing that Putin wants is TV footage of these two wartime leaders standing side by side. One of them will be looking young and energetic and confident and courageous, and the other one will be Putin. Just imagine a press event during that meeting with Zelensky answering questions, standing next to Putin, speaking to both the international and the Russian press at the same time. That would be just a disastrous image for Putin. He absolutely does not want to be put in that situation. But now that is what Donald Trump expects from him. And that's interesting.

The last thing I want to say is that I think it's also important to reflect a bit on what didn't happen. It's been a bit of a roller coaster over the last week with some very positive messages and then also some negative ones. I think it's also important to acknowledge that this has not so far turned into be a disaster for Ukraine or for the relationship between Europe and the United States.

One of Putin's likely goals with holding the meeting in Alaska was to drive a wedge between the Americans and the European NATO countries. And that does not seem to have happened. There was a meeting at the White House that, judging from the outside, seemed to go OK. We haven't had any dramatic messaging or Donald Trump making ultimatums or anything like that.

I still don't think that these negotiations are going to lead to anything in terms of a peace agreement in the near future. But at least it doesn't seem to be all that damaging.

And I also think it's interesting to consider how whatever happens now might become a starting point when at some point in the future we will be moving into more serious negotiations about ending the war because that will happen eventually. As I've mentioned in other videos, I don't think the military conditions are in place for that yet. To put it bluntly, one of the sides has to be closer to losing the war before they're willing to make those concessions that the adversary demands.

But whatever happens up until that point when that can actually happen, can serve as a basis for moving forward. So even if these diplomatic maneuvers that are happening now don't actually lead to real negotiations or to peace in the short term, that does not mean that they're pointless. It just means that the point that we're looking for might reveal itself over a longer period of time.

Okay, I will end it here. If you found the video helpful or informative, please give it a like. And also remember to subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon. Then you will get notifications when I upload new videos. If you want to support the channel, you can subscribe to my newsletter at www.logicofwar.com. Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you again next time.