Ukraine agreed to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, and President Trump says it’s now up to Russia. This comes after a weeks-long pressure campaign from the White House.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump says peace in Ukraine is now up to Russia after Ukraine agreed to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. For weeks, the White House has been pressuring Ukraine, the country that Russia invaded. NPR’s Franco Ordoñez has this story on the effectiveness of a morally uncomfortable strategy.
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JOE BIDEN: Russian planes are in the air, and tanks were rolling across your border. You told me…
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Three years ago, during a secret trip to Kyiv and standing next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Biden said he wanted to leave no doubt about U.S. support for the war.
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BIDEN: Remind us that freedom is priceless. It’s worth fighting for, for as long as it takes, and that’s how long we’re going to be with you, Mr. President – for as long as it takes.
ORDOÑEZ: For as long as it takes – it’s a very different message than the one President Trump delivered to Zelenskyy a few weeks ago.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States. And your people are very brave, but you’re either going to to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.
ORDOÑEZ: The dramatic reversal raised uncomfortable questions about whether the U.S. is switching sides – supporting Russia instead of the smaller country it invaded.
JEREMY SHAPIRO: The first thing you need to (ph) understand is that the main reason for the difference with the Biden strategy is that they have different goals.
ORDOÑEZ: That’s Jeremy Shapiro, a former Obama administration official. He says the Biden administration wanted to make sure that aggression was not rewarded and that Russia would not be able to prey on Ukraine again, while the Trump administration is almost exclusively focused on ending the fighting. And by not playing favorites, Shapiro says, Trump can use coercion on both sides – even against an ally.
SHAPIRO: If you give your ally a sort of sense that you will support their goals no matter what, they’re unlikely to be willing to make the kind of compromises that are necessary to end the war.
ORDOÑEZ: Shapiro says the Biden approach, while admirable, failed to reflect Russian momentum and the political wins against the war in the U.S.
SHAPIRO: While I think that the Trump administration’s policy represents a much crueler world, a place that I’m less enthused to live in than I was – than I am in Biden’s world, I think it’s a more realistic appreciation of what the United States can actually accomplish.
ORDOÑEZ: Samuel Charap, a political analyst with the the RAND Corporation, has long argued that talking to Russia is in U.S. national interest.
SAMUEL CHARAP: Talking is not a gift. It’s a way of getting things done.
ORDOÑEZ: And to Trump’s credit, Charap says Putin appears to be responding. Putin hasn’t ended the war, but there have been gestures, such as releasing Marc Fogel, the American teacher who was deemed wrongfully detained by Russia.
CHARAP: Like, rubber’s going to hit the road sometime soon ’cause Trump clearly has more than just reopening channels of communication for its own sake in mind, and he wants to actually end the war.
ORDOÑEZ: Putin has yet to accept the offer, but the White House is already claiming some validation for the strategy. Here’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: This is the closest we have been to peace in this war. We are at the 10th yard line, and the president is expecting the Russians to help us run this into the end zone.
ORDOÑEZ: But even if Russia agrees, it has a long record of broken pledges and treaty violations, says Liana Fix, of the Council on Foreign Relations.
LIANA FIX: I think it would be very naive to trust Russia’s words and negotiations because of all the historical experience that we have.
ORDOÑEZ: And while Trump has warned Russia of potential financial sanctions, he’s asked Putin for very few concessions. Shapiro, who is now at the European Council on Foreign Relations, calls it the flaw of Trump’s strategy.
SHAPIRO: It’s actually a huge mistake to be nice to Putin. You should be able to be mean to everybody at the same time.
ORDOÑEZ: What’s interesting, Shapiro points out, is that Trump is usually pretty good at that, just not so much when it involves Putin. Franco Ordoñez, NPR News.
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