The end of the affair: Trump's peace process fails

What happens next?

I ain't a-saying you treated me unkind
You could've done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

- Bob Dylan

Donald Trump’s great push for peace between Russia and Ukraine ended with a whimper. After a two-hour call with Vladimir Putin on 19 May he claimed that a path to an immediate ceasefire had been set. Unfortunately, the only thing that was immediate was Putin contradicting his claim.

All this was in keeping with the spirit of Trump’s whole initiative- which has been delusional from the start. In his Truth Social post after this call he repeated two of his animating fallacies - that Putin wanted peace in the way that he wanted peace, and that once secured and normal relations with Russia restored then there were great economic deals to be done.

Trump had framed this as a problem that he, unlike Biden, would never have allowed to appear in the first place and one that only he, unlike Biden or indeed anybody else, could solve. Trump’s initial claim that he could end the war in 24 hours can be forgiven as a bit of routine hyperbole (he later described it ‘sarcasm’). Nonetheless this was the first test of his new foreign policy and it is one that he has failed, as tariffs have failed him in his new economic policy. He failed because he never really understood the underlying drivers of the conflict, believing that it was about little more than territory, because he underestimated Ukraine’s resilience, and because while he sensed that it might help if Russia was put under more pressure he could not bring himself to do so. His confidence in his personal combination of charm, bluster and bullying proved to be unwarranted.

He leaves the state of the war more or less as he found it. Russia is still inching forward trying to take Ukrainian towns it has been for well over a year, taking substantial casualties as it does so, while using Shahed drones to attack random Ukrainian targets, regularly killing civilians in the process. Ukraine is coping, better than many, including in Trump’s team, expected, although still at a high cost. The main consequences of Trump’s effort has been to demonstrate that Ukraine has an interest in an unconditional ceasefire and Russia does not, for Putin dare not let the war end with his political goals unmet. A negotiating track has emerged, although without a major change of heart by Putin it is unlikely to yield much progress. The Americans no longer appear to intend to play a part in it.

There is no need to go back over the whole sad process, with its odd twists and turns. What matters is that Ukraine signed up to Trump’s plan for an early ceasefire at the start of March while Putin insisted that he wanted a negotiated peace as he set conditions that made it impossible. We can focus on the events of the last few weeks to appreciate the extent to which Putin played Trump and how he managed to extricate himself from a process that he feared he could not control. After doing so I will look at where this war – and prospects for peace – are likely headed next.