Trump’s attempt to mediate between Ukraine and Russia has foundered as there was no serious basis for negotiation, or engaging Russia, argues Chris Bambery 

The United States will no longer mediate between Russia and Ukraine, leaving the two countries to work out how to end the war, a state department official has said. She added, ‘we will not be the mediators.’ 

It is clear that, within the Trump administration, there is a division between those who support the Make America Great Again, Maga, agenda which includes ending the permanent wars America has been engaged in, and the numerous neo-cons Trump has surrounded himself with, who want to keep the regime-change agenda and do not want peace with Moscow. 

In truth, it’s hard to see how Russia would accept the US as a mediator. Despite the filmed encounter in the Oval Office between Donald Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, where the two Americans said that the US would pull the plug on its military and financial support, that never happened. The arms, money and intelligence still flowed. The CIA operatives and military ‘advisors’ remained. 

Trump famously described the Russo-Ukrainian War as ‘Biden’s war’. That was true. Yet now, over a hundred days into his Presidency, it is very much ‘Trump’s War’, because he never stopped that vital support. 

Trump has signed a treaty with Zelensky whereby the US has created what is effectively an investment fund which gives it preferential access. It also provides further arms supplies but these will have to be paid for by Kyiv. From my reading of this treaty, it is fairly worthless. Trump clearly wanted a quick deal he could use to show his supporters he truly is the ‘President of Peace’, despite his ongoing support for genocide in Gaza and his threats to unleash hell on Iran. 

However, this is not some real-estate deal. If we are seriously talking about mediating between the two warring parties, that is a complicated business whereby bona fides must be established as well as trust, if not friendship, and that takes time and effort. I have just finished Peter Taylor’s book, Operation Chiffon, on the back channel built up between the British secret service and the Irish Republican Army’s leadership. It was a lengthy and exhausting process. 

Trump’s personal emissary, Steve Witkoff, has met Putin and knows what Russia will demand for peace: its absorption of the four oblasts it claims and largely holds, a reduction in Ukraine’s armed forces and Ukraine’s permanent neutrality above all. In addition, the Kremlin wants to address the wider security situation involving it, the USA and Nato. There are potential flashpoints running from the Artic Circle to the Black Sea and there’s the fundamental question of Nato expansion with Russia feeling it is encircled. 

Putin is not going to agree a ceasefire for the simple reason that he is winning on the battlefield. This isn’t to justify Putin’s criminal invasion, but it is the simple reality. A ceasefire would just freeze the fighting for a while. 

Russia’s reasoning 

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was interviewed by CBS on 27 April. When asked about a ceasefire he replied: ‘deals were signed, and then Ukraine would violate those deals with the support and with encouragement from Biden administration and from European countries. This was the fate of the deal of February 2014. Then this was the fate of the Minsk agreements, and this was the fate of the deal reached on the basis of Ukrainian proposals in Istanbul in April 2022. So President Putin said, “Ceasefire, yes, but we want the guarantees that the ceasefire would not be used again to beef up Ukrainian military, and that the supplies of arms should stop”.’ 

He then added: ‘If you want a ceasefire just to continue supply arms to Ukraine, so what is your purpose? You know what Kaja Kallas [Vice President of the European Commission] and Mark Rutte [Secretary General of Nato] said about the ceasefire and the settlement? They bluntly stated that they can support only the deal which at the end of the day will make Ukraine stronger, would make Ukraine a victor.’ 

Putin and Lavrov are not, whatever your opinion of them, stupid. They require a permanent cessation with permanent, agreed conditions. If not, they will keep fighting. Russia claims to have removed Ukrainian forces from Kursk province and to be creating a ‘security strip’ across the border in Ukraine’s Sumy region. Meanwhile, on the battlefront, it has continued to push slowly westwards. As summer approaches, a major offensive is expected. 

If Ukraine if facing defeat, what will Trump do? A Russian victory would be seen as a defeat for the US in this proxy war. That’s not acceptable. But trying to throw more resources at Ukraine when it’s clearly losing isn’t either. 

If Trump wanted a peace deal, he needed to stop the flow of arms to Kyiv and ensure Witkoff was accompanied by senior diplomats and military chiefs, not operating on his own. That did not look serious. 

So, it, may be that by the autumn there will have to be talks in a far less favourable situation for Ukraine. The failure of Trump’s peace initiative will sentence thousands more Ukrainians and Russians to death in a war Ukraine cannot win. 

For all the bluster of Starmer, Macron and Merz, they do not have the weaponry and troops with which to re-arm Ukraine. Even the Americans cannot supply the artillery shells it needs to counter Russia. 

There is one final point to make. One of Joe Biden’s achievements was to drive Russia and China together. Russia has now signed a treaty with Iran. It is widely believed Trump hoped to pull Putin away from Beijing and towards the USA. But why would Putin do that? 

Even if he believed in Trump’s genuineness, the latter will only be in office for four years. Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico means Moscow would question how reliable an ally the USA would be. Beijing looks a far better bet. Putin is turning Russia east and southwards. 

Russia would be unlikely to join in a war between Iran and the USA (and Israel) but it has provided the most modern air defences and much else to Tehran. Any US war on Iran would only further poison relations with both Russia and China.  

All in all, it’s not a happy picture.