After a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on May 19, US president Donald Trump took to social media to declare that Russia and Ukraine will “immediately start negotiations” towards a ceasefire and an end to the war. He did, however, add that the conditions for peace “will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be”.
With the Vatican, according to Trump, "very interested in hosting the negotiations" and European leaders duly informed, it seems clear that the United States, and Trump personally, have effectively abandoned their stalled mediation efforts to end the war against Ukraine.
It was always a possibility that Trump could walk away from the war, despite previous claims he could end it in 24 hours. This only became more likely on May 16, when the first face-to-face negotiations between Ukraine and Russia for more than three years predictably ended without a ceasefire agreement.
When Trump announced shortly afterwards on his social media platform that he would be speaking to his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts by phone a few days later, he effectively mounted the beginning of a rearguard action. This was further underlined when US vice president JD Vance shortly before the Trump-Putin call explicitly told reporters that the US could end its shuttle diplomacy.
The meagre outcomes of the talks between Russia and Ukraine — as well as between Trump and Putin — are not surprising.
Russia is clearly not ready for any concessions yet and keeps insisting that Ukraine accept its maximalist demands of territorial concessions and future neutrality.
Putin simultaneously continues to slow-walk any negotiations. After his call with Trump, he reportedly said that "Russia will offer and is ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum on a possible future peace agreement", including "a possible ceasefire for a certain period of time, should relevant agreements be reached."
The lack of urgency on Russia's part to end the fighting, and, in fact, the Kremlin's ability and willingness to continue the war, was underlined by the largest drone attack against Ukraine so far in the war on the day before the Trump-Putin call. Nor has there been any let-up in the fighting since. And the fact that Putin spoke to Trump while visiting a music school in the southern Russian city of Sochi further suggests that a ceasefire in Ukraine is not that high on the Russian leader's priority list.
A large part of the Kremlin's calculation seems to be the desire to strike a grand bargain with the White House on a broader reset of relations — and to signal clearly that this is more important than the war in Ukraine and might even happen without the fighting there ending.
This also still appears to drive thinking in Washington, with Trump foreshadowing an improvement in bilateral relations by describing "tone and spirit of the conversation" with Putin as "excellent". Following the two-hour conversation with his Russian counterpart, Trump also seemed excited about the prospects of "largescale trade" with Russia.
Trump is on record as saying that there would be no progress towards peace in Ukraine until he and Putin would get together. Such direct interaction between the American and Russian presidents may well be critical to any progress in relations between the two countries. However, it is worth bearing in mind that very little movement towards a ceasefire in Ukraine, let alone a peace agreement, occurred after the previous phone call between the two presidents on February 12.
Part of this lack of progress has been Trump's reluctance to date to put any real pressure on Putin. And despite agreement in Brussels and preparations in Washington for an escalation in sanctions against Russia, it is unlikely that Trump will change his approach.
If anything, the outcome of this latest Trump-Putin call is an indication that Trump is prioritising the improvement of bilateral relations with Russia over peace in Ukraine.
In this context, the sequence in which the calls occurred is also telling. Trump and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had a short call before the former spoke with Putin. Zelensky said he told Trump not to make decisions about Ukraine “without us”.
But rather than presenting Putin with a clear ultimatum to accept the existing ceasefire proposal, Trump apparently discussed future bilateral relations with Putin at great length during their call — before informing Zelensky and key European allies that the war in Ukraine is now solely their problem to solve.
This has certainly raised justifiable fears in Kyiv and other European capitals again that, for the sake of a reset with Russia, the US might yet completely abandon its allies across the Atlantic.
However, if a reset with Russia at any cost really is Trump's strategy, it is bound to fail.
As much as Putin seems willing to continue with his aggression against Ukraine, Zelensky is as unwilling to surrender. Where Putin can rely on China's continuing support, Zelensky can count on a European-led coalition of the willing.
Supporting Russia — and keeping the war in Ukraine going — is essential for China to keep Moscow on site in its rivalry with the United States. For Europe, supporting Ukraine has become an existential question of deterring and containing a revisionist Russia hell-bent on restoring a Soviet-style sphere of influence in central and eastern Europe.
In a world that has been much in flux since Trump's return to the White House, these are some of the emerging fixpoints. They make a US-Russia reset highly improbable. And even if it were to happen, it would not strengthen Washington's position vis-à-vis Beijing. Walking away from Ukraine and Europe now, will deprive America of the very allies that it will need in the long term to prevail in its rivalry with China.
It is not clear whether Trump realises that this is a predicament of his own making. Trump is fixated on a deal with Putin. But his Russian counterpart prioritises winning the war against Ukraine — not making a deal that will entail any compromises.
By abandoning his mediation between Moscow and Kyiv, Trump may have broken the deadlock in his efforts to achieve a reset with Russia. But getting this deal over the line will be a pyrrhic victory.
An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on May 20, 2025.
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