NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte after meeting with President Donald Trump and Norway’s PM Jonas Gahr Støre on Thursday proclaimed that all Western leaders, including Trump, are on the same page viewing Russia as a "long-term threat" to NATO territory.
Rutte was optimistic about Trump helping to potentially end the Russia-Ukraine war, saying that "huge steps" have lately been made which put the onus on Russia to respond by displaying positive action or making concessions.
But it's clear there's a lot of tensions and discomfort in the Western military alliance given the optics of more US pressure being brought to bear against Ukraine and Zelensky in particular. This has been seen in the back-and-forth over the fate of Crimea.
Trump on Wednesday unleashed immense criticism on the Ukrainian President for his rejection of a US plan that would given recognition of Russian sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula. Trump had said on Truth Social in reference to Zelensky, "if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired"... and "He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country."
It's clear that Rutte's trip to Washington was in large part about lobbying Trump to take the pressure off Zelensky. A prior Financial Times report had said Rutte would urge the White House "not to force Ukraine to accept a peace deal against its will."
Presumably this message was also conveyed in the NATO chief's meetings with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz on Thursday.
A NATO official had told FT, "The key message is making the Americans understand what’s at stake." Western officials and mainstream media have at times described Trump's latest messaging on the conflict as outright 'pro-Russian'. Trump had said Thursday that Russia's main concession to Ukraine is not taking over the whole country, which were viewed as highly provocative remarks.
Meanwhile, Trump told reporters Friday, "We’re meeting with Putin right now as we speak" - in reference to Steve Witkoff being in Moscow. "We have a lot of things going on, and I think at the end, we’re going to end up with a lot of good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals, but we’re going to try to get out of war." He added that he thinks "we're pretty close" to achieving a peace deal.
Among other things the Russian side has demanded the cessation of Western arms and ammo to Ukraine, but Washington wants Ukraine to be able to maintain the ability to react forcibly, which contradicts Moscow's desire for the full demilitarization of the country.
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Meanwhile, independent journalist and political commentator Michal Tracey has a strong note of caution regarding where things actually are regarding progress on Ukraine peace...
The most generous interpretation of Trump's negotiating strategy thus far is that he's made relatively cost-free conciliatory gestures to Russia, which Putin has to some degree reciprocated. This makes sense, as the party against whom US military assets have been arrayed is Russia, and there had been little or no high-level US/Russian contact for several years.
In order to achieve a settlement to the war, there would have to be some "detente" with Russia, as the cut-off in contacts between 2022-2025 was a huge historical aberration. Even during the most fraught Soviet days, never had there been any comparable cut-off in contacts between the world's leading nuclear powers. Trump has simultaneously taken a publicly aggressive line toward Ukraine. This also makes sense, as Ukraine is a US client state, and it's over Ukraine that the US has leverage -- not necessarily Russia.
The Biden Administration's incessant mantra had been "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine," thereby purporting to displace US policy agency onto Ukraine, despite the US obviously having the ultimate agency as arms supplier, intel-provider, NATO leader, etc. Trump has shifted that fictional "agency" calculus.
But leaving aside the public gestures and diplomatic posturing (while important), the policy status quo to a large extent persists. US sanctions have not been adjusted. Aside from a brief interruption in March, US arms continue to flow to Ukraine. Europe is re-militarizing, however fitfully. Ukraine has no credible plans to take back major territory currently occupied by Russia. Thus the principal concession that would have to be obtained at this point, in terms of the underlying power dynamic, is from Russia.
Freezing the conflict along the current lines had been previously denounced by Putin as intolerable. Now we hear that the outline of the Trump proposal includes not just freezing the current lines, but allowing Ukraine to control significant parts of what Putin has declared to be eternal territory of the Russian Federation. Along with the US taking control of the Zapohirizia nuclear plant (also located on territory annexed by Putin.) Russia would further be required to abandon its original war aim of "demilitarizing" Ukraine, although it's possible that this provision could be subject to technical modifications.
All the while, there's no indication that US/EU/NATO would cease arming Ukraine under the "ceasefire" framework. If anything, the armament could intensify, as Norway's prime minister pledged in a meeting today with Trump. It's very easy to imagine Russian "milbloggers" and hawks being utterly infuriated if Putin were to accept the terms proposed by Trump -- at least as they have been publicly reported. It could easily be spun as a capitulation by Russia.
US recognition of Crimea might be a nice side perk, but it may not have much direct bearing on the core grievances that gave rise to the 2022 invasion. Russia has never been in serious jeopardy of losing Crimea, so US recognition in practice would be a mostly legalistic change. In totality, it makes little sense for Trump to publicly antagonize Putin at this time. (Notwithstanding his "Vladimir, STOP!" post, which is pretty mild all things considered.) Whether the public gestures are sufficient for Putin to accept ceasefire terms that could be easily spun as a capitulation remains in considerable doubt -- but it's not IMPOSSIBLE that a settlement of some sort could be achieved, if Putin is willing to significantly scale down his 2022 war aims.
