While the globe’s attention has been fixated on efforts to finally achieve US-Iran peace, based on negotiations in Switzerland, the Russia-Ukraine war has been quietly (or not so quietly) heating up, as evidenced in the increasingly brazen Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow and Crimea.
A slew of Ukrainian publications on Tuesday are reporting that this is in large part due to a White House greenlight to bring the war to Russian territory, in order to finally get significant concessions from Moscow, after over four years of grinding and a largely stalemated conflict.
“Ukraine now believes it has secured White House backing for a campaign aimed at forcing Russia into meaningful negotiations, the Kyiv Independent has learned,” one such prominent English-language publication says.
The key claim is that President Trump privately told President Volodymyr Zelensky to act “more boldly,” a senior Ukrainian official has claimed to several outlets.
“Trump says he doesn’t really believe (Vladimir) Putin will do anything without pressure,” the official, said to have been briefed on a recent Trump-Zelensky meeting, added.
“President (Trump) believes in peace through strength,” one US official separately added.
According to Trump, who was recently asked about lukewarm efforts to get the warring sides back to the negotiating table…
“I don’t mind,” the American President said. “I mean, let them deal.”
Ukraine’s Zelensky had just days ago proclaimed: “I will not travel to Moscow to meet with Putin. We can meet in Turkey, Switzerland, or the Middle East.”
Washington has clearly taken a step back after the prior big Putin-Trump summit in Alaska failed to produce any significant or lasting results in Ukraine, other than perhaps improving Moscow-Washington relations.
If it’s true that Trump did indeed tell Zelensky to act ‘more boldly’ – this will music to the UK, France, Germany, and Baltic states’ ears… they have wanted a clearer US greenlight to impose heavy costs on Russia.
But obviously the situation remains highly dangerous, given if they poke the nuclear-armed Russian bear too much, the war could finally escalate beyond just Ukraine and Russia’s borders.
The problem is that this has all been tried before, and Russia only escalates in turn, seeking to clarify its red lines to the West. It’s long been a proxy war, but things can always slide into dangerous open confrontation and conflict with NATO.