Putin Is "Breadcrumbing" Trump, US on Ukraine Talks: Tina Fordham

Vladimir Putin believes he has a strong hand ahead of a phone call Monday with Donald Trump as European leaders are trying to prevent the US president from rushing through a deal.

Putin is confident that his forces can break through Ukraine’s defenses by the end of the year to take full control of four regions that he has claimed for Russia, according to a person familiar with the Russian president’s thinking who asked not to named discussing private conversations.

That means the Russian president is unlikely to offer any meaningful concessions to Trump when the two leaders speak and European officials are worried that Trump may try to force through a settlement regardless.

The US president has been pushing for a quick end to a war that is now deep into its fourth year and has backed himself to unlock a deal in a direct conversation with Putin. The Russian leader, for his part, has given no indication that he’s ready to stop fighting as his troops slowly grind forward on the battlefield and that’s fueled concern in Kyiv and other European capitals that Ukraine could be pushed into giving up more ground.

Fordham Global Foresight founder and geopolitical strategist Tina Fordham examines the nature of Vladimir Putin's approach toward President Trump as a ceasefire in Ukraine remains elusive. Tina speaks with Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.

“Unfortunately where we are in the war, you don’t see strong incentives for Russia to agree to a ceasefire,” Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said at a conference in Tallinn, Estonia, Sunday.

There’s a growing sense that US efforts to impose a ceasefire are culminating and officials in Europe are unsure whether Trump will ramp up pressure on Russia or simply move on to the next challenge if they fail. Trump has promised to brief Zelenskiy and some of his NATO allies once he’s finished speaking with his Russian counterpart.

“Pressure on Russia must be increased,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Monday on the X social media platform. Ukraine is focused on a “full and immediate ceasefire” to kickstart talks, and “Moscow must now understand the consequences of impeding the peace process,” he said.

Despite all the talk about ending the fighting, Putin is ready for a protracted war if that is what is required to achieve his goals and he is sanguine about the prospect of further US sanctions, according to two other people close to the Kremlin.

Russia’s economy has largely adjusted to years of sweeping sanctions. The Kremlin has repeatedly said that Russia is unmoved by threats of further restrictions, and that they won’t persuade Putin to change his war aims.

“Trump wants Putin to agree to a truce but he absolutely doesn’t want to,” said Sergei Markov, a political consultant with close ties to the Kremlin. “But Putin isn’t interested in a collapse of the talks. He’s trying to maneuver so that these negotiations continue alongside the military offensive.”

On a call Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron and the UK’s Keir Starmer tried to make it clear to Trump that Putin has been stringing him along, according to one senior European official. They are hoping that Trump will realize that he risks looking like a loser if he forces a bad deal on Ukraine, the official added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was also on the Friday call but he seemed despondent and exhausted by the week’s developments, the official said. Zelenskiy and his European allies believed they had a commitment from Trump to hit the Kremlin with fresh sanctions if Putin refused to observe a ceasefire from last Monday, but that hasn’t materialized.

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