Trump Reaches the Pivot

The next seven days could decide the future of the Ukraine war

I think Trump is overconfident and arrogant. I also believe he shares Putin’s core ideology — that democracies are a waste of time and people are meant to be deceived by them. He doesn’t look for long-term solutions to the vexing problems at Europe’s eastern edge. If anything, he’s likely to create more trouble down the line by conceding too much to Putin.

But here’s where I diverge from the standard narrative: I don’t think Trump is burning the midnight oil trying to hand Putin a win or sabotage Ukraine. That outcome might still happen — but more from incompetence than intention. Trump will never put Putin’s political future ahead of his own. The real danger lies in Putin finding a way to align both their political fortunes. If he pulls that off, the world should brace itself. If he fails, we might just get a little breathing space.

Donald Trump has reached a pivot point. How he handles the Ukraine–U.S.–Russia ceasefire negotiations in the coming weeks will shape the course of the war — and the West’s response — for months, if not years.

After two frenzied weeks of backchannel talks, all three players — Ukraine, the United States, and the Kremlin — released their own summaries of the negotiations. Not a joint document, but three different versions of reality, with only a few overlapping details. That tells you everything.

But here’s the clearest signal we’ve seen so far: Russia has refused to accept the current ceasefire proposal unless the United States lifts sanctions on Rosselkhozbank — Russia’s state-owned agricultural bank — and other unnamed financial institutions tied to international food and fertilizer trade.

The Kremlin’s objective is clear. This demand isn’t just a bargaining chip — it’s a deliberate stress test to see how far Trump is willing to tilt toward Moscow. But it goes deeper than that. It’s meant to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe. Washington can’t lift sanctions on Rosselkhozbank unilaterally — it needs European cooperation. If Trump gives in now, Russia will take the win, bank the leverage, and come back with an even steeper list of demands.

It’s a clever move. It buys the Kremlin time. It fractures the Western front. And it forces Trump into the kind of position he hates most: one where hesitation looks weak, but action looks compromised.

He’s not entirely unaware of this trap — but whether he can resist walking into it is another question entirely.

Asked by a reporter from American right-wing cable news broadcaster Newsmax if he believed that the Kremlin was stalling, Trump on Tuesday said he thought “Russia wants to see an end” to its full-scale invasion.

“But it could be that they’re dragging their feet,” he admitted, adding that he had used the same tactic in his own past dealings to play for time.

“I’ve done it over the years,” Trump said. “You know, I don’t want to sign a contract, I want to sort of stay in the game but maybe I don’t want to do it quite, I’m not sure.”

It’s decision time for President Trump.

As of March 26, 2025, Ukraine has accepted the ceasefire proposal put forward by Trump’s team. The Kremlin has not. Yet we don’t see the same fury from Trump’s camp that erupted when President Zelensky initially resisted ceasefire terms without concrete security guarantees.

Ukraine has moved. They’ve come around — even at great political risk back home. But now it’s Moscow that’s digging in. The asymmetry in Team Trump’s reaction speaks volumes. When Kyiv pushed back, it was framed as obstinance. When the Kremlin rejects the deal outright, it’s treated as a negotiation detail.

This is the moment where Trump’s instincts — and the pressures around him — will define the direction of U.S. policy. Does he hold firm and force Putin to climb down? Or does he recalibrate the deal, again, to chase Moscow’s approval?

So what is Trump going to do?

Because a decision must be made now. Either he gives in further to the Kremlin’s demands — and if he does, the asks will only escalate from here — or he goes the other way and turns up the pressure on Vladimir Putin.

I’m not entirely sure which path he’ll take. But here’s one thing Trump has done right so far: he’s held the sanctions. He seems to grasp their strategic value — and he knows they’re his biggest leverage over Putin. That’s precisely why the Kremlin is now targeting them.

If I’m reading Trump correctly, he’ll try to squeeze a ceasefire out of Moscow — but quietly, behind closed doors, without any dramatic public standoff. He doesn’t want a confrontation; he wants a deal.

That’s why the next seven days matter. Because how Trump moves now will tell us just how badly he wants the deal — and how far he’s willing to go to get it.

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Update:

Looks like President Trump has made the pivot — in favor of Putin. Reports say he wants to lift the sanctions on Russia. If that’s the direction he’s headed, then it’s pretty much over. Ukraine and Europe will have to go it alone.

Details are still trickling in — how Trump plans to lift the sanctions, when he plans to do it, and whether Putin agrees to a ceasefire — all of it matters. But for now, Trump has taken the worst possible step imaginable.

I’ve incorporated the updates into the story below: