Putin’s Strategy Is Working: Trump Could Salvage the Kremlin’s Objectives in Ukraine
Foreign Affairs · Michael McFaul ·
Trump could salvage the Kremlin’s objectives in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin plays the long game. For decades, the Russian leader has worked to subjugate Ukraine. For decades, he has also cultivated ties with Donald Trump. Now, success at the latter endeavor is allowing Putin to recover from failures at the former: after nearly five years of thwarted Russian objectives in the war on Ukraine, the U.S. president is helping him win. By easing sanctions on Russia, cutting military and economic assistance to Ukraine, disrupting intelligence cooperation, and pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Putin’s war aims, Trump is making Russia’s successful annexation of substantial Ukrainian territory and de facto control over Kyiv’s future decisions more likely than at almost any point since February 2022.
Since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, battlefield momentum has swung back and forth between the two sides. Russian forces had the advantage at the start. But by the fall of 2022, Ukraine had seized the offensive, liberating so much territory once held by Russian troops that Washington worried Putin might use a nuclear weapon to stop Ukrainian advances. The war then settled into a tragic grind on the frontline—until last spring. Momentum returned to Ukraine after Kyiv deployed new long-range missiles capable of striking targets deep inside Russia, new midrange drones able to attack Russian supply routes in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine, and improved interceptor drones that could better defend against Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities. Putin’s army proved unable to advance on the frontline; Ukrainian troops even made incremental progress in liberating territory.
But Trump has helped return the momentum to Russia. Stymied at the frontline, Putin has shifted his focus to terrorizing Ukrainian society through rocket and drone strikes on both civilians and the infrastructure their livelihood depends on—energy and water in particular—driven by the hope that a suffering population would pressure Zelensky to capitulate. New weaponry has made this terrorist campaign especially brutal, in particular the mass production of ballistic missiles and a new drone, the Geran 5, equipped with a powerful Chinese rocket engine that Ukrainian air defenses cannot intercept. Because Russia has more troops, greater military production capacity, and some new and better weapons, Putin believes that he can afford to persist despite the seeming stalemate.
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