The President of the United States emphasized that he is giving the Russian and Ukrainian leaders four months to end the war – and if that does not happen, he will increase pressure on both Russia and Ukraine.

 

President Trump's anxiety is understandable. With only a few months left before the start of a full-fledged election campaign, there are many signs that a "blue wave" of Democratic success is possible. And Trump certainly does not want Republicans to be reminded during this campaign of the president's promise to quickly end the Russia-Ukraine war. On the contrary, at campaign rallies he should be demonstrating the success of his peacemaking efforts.

 

However, how logical is it to continue to blame both sides – the victim and the aggressor – for delaying the process? After all, it is Russian troops advancing on Ukrainian territory and demanding that Kyiv withdraw its forces from regions that the entire world recognizes as an integral part of Ukraine. After all, it is the Russian president who considers it acceptable to create conditions for a genuine humanitarian catastrophe in Ukrainian cities. After all, it is Russia that demands Ukraine abandon its own vision of its future.

 

If we put pressure on Ukraine, what can we achieve? What decisions should the Ukrainian authorities make to help end the war? Stop resisting Russian aggression? Agree that Russia should receive as much territory as Putin wants? Give up sovereignty?

 

The words that Putin can end this war as easily as he started it are not an image, but a reality. If the Russian president, for one reason or another, decides that "we just need to stop shooting," the war will end without any pressure on Ukraine. And I'll reveal a secret that the American president will obviously not like. In that case, Putin will do without intermediaries. He simply won't need Trump.

 

So the pressure should not be applied to both sides. The pressure must be applied to the aggressor. The pressure must be directed specifically at Russia. Ukraine must be helped, new sanctions must be introduced to further exhaust and collapse the Russian economy, and Kyiv must be provided with long-range weapons to destroy Russia’s strategic facilities and “bury” Putin’s oil refining industry. And then the preconditions for peace will emerge – maybe not in four months, which may be important for the President of the United States in the context of an election campaign. But they will emerge!

 

The idea of ​​putting pressure on both sides of the conflict is an obvious mistake. It was also a mistake to hope that the resumption of Russian-American contacts at the highest level and the trips of Donald Trump's special representatives to Moscow would contribute to Putin's readiness to end the war. After all, the Russian president habitually perceives any desire to talk and negotiate as a sign of weakness and an opportunity to deceive and "press" the enemy. And this is exactly the development of events that we have been observing over the past year.

 

But mistakes are made precisely so that they can later be corrected. If Donald Trump truly wants his peacemaking efforts to produce results and to be able to point to those results – namely, the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war – during the Republicans’ election campaign, then he must clearly understand exactly what he needs to do.

 

Not threaten Ukraine and Russia with pressure in four months, but put pressure on Putin now. Apply pressure in such a way that the Russian president is left with no alternative but to stop waging war, killing, and shelling.