In April, Donald Trump questioned whether Vladimir Putin really wanted to work out a peace deal with Ukraine.
Trump has managed to get President Zelensky to make some rather significant concessions for that deal, but now Putin is making demands that are likely to have everyone walk away from the table.
When Trump was running for office, I cautioned on overpromising, but Trump kept making claims that there was no possible way he could deliver on.
One of those promises was that he would have the Ukraine-Russia war over on day one, if not before he took office, and now the media is calling him out on it.
April 29 marked Trump’s 100 days in office, and still no peace deal, which had journalists questioning him and headlines blowing up all over the mainstream media.
When asked why he has not been able to end the war yet and failed to deliver on his day one promise, Trump responded, “Well, I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration, because to make a point. Obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest, but it was also said that [the war] will be ended.” For the record, that is not how people took it, clearly.
When Trump took office, I realistically gave him about six months to have both the Israel and Ukraine wars taken care of, and I still believe he will hit that timeline, even though it is far beyond what he had promised.
Trump stated that he wants a deal to end the war in “two weeks or less,” but he conceded that it could take longer.
When Trump was asked what he would need from Putin, he stated, "I want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal. We have the confines of a deal I believe and I want him to sign it and be done with it and just go back to life."
When asked about his conversations with Zelensky, Trump responded, "He told me that he needs more weapons and we're going to see what happens -- I want to see what, with respect to Russia -- with Russia I've been surprised and disappointed when they did the bombing.”
Russia recently put its demands on the table for a peace deal, demanding that the United States lift all sanctions and that Ukraine become “demilitarized.”
The Russians also want it to be recognized that 20% of Ukraine as it exists today falls under Russian control. In other words, Russia is mimicking a recent comment by Zelensky, in stating that it wants total victory over Ukraine for this war to be over.
George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War stated, “The Kremlin is now explicitly demanding all of Kherson and Zaporizhia, which was not part of the 2021 demands. Bottom line, the Kremlin is rejecting Trump’s proposals and articulating goals that require the war to go on or for Ukraine to surrender things for no reason. The only thing it is willing to negotiate are the terms of US capitulation and Ukrainian surrender.”
I believe that if the demands were reasonable, Zelensky might cede some territory, but these demands by Russia are sheer lunacy, and there is no way a deal will be made with those concessions. Even though this war started under the Biden administration, it is now officially becoming a black stain on the record of Trump because of the comments he made during the election cycle. Trump regularly claimed he was the “only” person who could get this war over, not to mention the day one promise, and he is failing miserably, and that all falls on him for overpromising.
