The Daily - Peace in Ukraine Is Harder Than Trump Thought

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

President Trump once approached the challenge of ending Russia’s war in Ukraine as a straight-ahead deal that he could achieve easily. But after months of trying, he’s signaling that he might actually walk away.Michael Crowley, who covers U.S. foreign policy for The New York Times, discusses the recent phone call between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and what it tells us about how the conflict could end.Guest: Michael Crowley, a reporter covering the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The New York Times.Background reading: Mr. Trump’s new position on the war in Ukraine: Not my problem.In his call with Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin notched a diplomatic win, with an economic caveat.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. President Trump once approached the challenge of ending Russia's war in Ukraine as a straight-ahead deal, something that he could achieve easily. But after months of trying, he's signaling that he might actually walk away. Today, my colleague Michael Crowley on the phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and what it tells us about how the conflict could end. It's Wednesday, May 21st. Michael, nice to speak with you. I don't think we've ever met before.

I don't think we have. Thanks for having me. Yeah, our pleasure. So, Michael, we want to talk to you about this two-hour phone call that happened between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that happened on Monday. But before we get there, we haven't really checked in on the war between Russia and Ukraine since that disastrous Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. I want to understand what happened in between Trump and Zelensky kind of blowing up at each other and this call that was, I think, pretty remarkable in a few ways.

Yeah. Well, in some ways, we are at a point that no one could have predicted back in February when Zelensky was essentially thrown out of the White House by Trump. And you know, it looked like Ukraine was cooked. Trump was very angry at Zelensky and very eager by all indications to please Russian President Vladimir Putin. But in the weeks since then, the story has become a little more complicated. There's some tension in the relationship between Trump and Putin that we've not seen before.

Ukraine is certainly not out of the woods yet, but the path to this phone call was much more winding and filled with surprises, I think, than anyone would have expected on that day when Trump essentially berated the president of Ukraine and acted as though he was finished doing business with him. Let's start at the beginning of that winding road. What was the immediate fallout from that meeting? Well, Ukrainians and their supporters in Europe and the United States were basically panicking after that meeting.

Trump declared that Ukraine was not ready for a peace deal, a deal he promised as a candidate that he could strike in as little as one day, and suspended US military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine. His attitude was, you Zelensky are not showing enough respect to the United States and not willing enough to cut a deal, and we're done with you. Good day and good luck. And what was happening was, not only was Trump castigating Zelensky and to many people blaming the victim of this Russian invasion, but accelerating his diplomacy with Moscow

and talking about economic deals and potentially lifting sanctions and restoring normal diplomatic relations and seeming to get very excited about this prospect that America and Russia would be friends. So how did President Zelensky respond to all of this at the time? You know, I think a couple of things happened. Number one, I think the Ukrainians changed their tone. Zelensky was much more careful about what he said about the US and the Trump administration in public. At the same time, behind the scenes, you had some European leaders acting as what one longtime

Russia-Ukraine expert said to me was acting as marriage counselors between President Trump and the Ukrainian government. And you know, Trump has no great love for much of Western Europe in particular, but he will listen to the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron of France. And they did a lot of work behind the scenes to try to reason with Trump and present the Ukrainian position to him. And also, I think, to talk to Zelensky and the Ukrainians about how to interface with the US government in a way that was going to put them in better standing in the White

House than Zelensky was on that painful day. And so what happened then? So one thing that happens is that Zelensky and Ukraine very cleverly shift their posture. They start showing a real openness to some sort of a deal with Russia. This is something that they had rejected for years. But I think that they realize that what Trump wants more than anything is some deal, any deal where he can proclaim a victory. So Ukraine agrees on March 11th to a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia. And the Trump administration rewards Ukraine for this agreement by lifting its suspension

of military aid and intelligence sharing. Vladimir Putin will not agree to an unconditional ceasefire and accepts a very, very limited deal which falls apart quickly. I think that's an early disappointment for Trump. I think it starts to dawn on Trump in the following days and weeks that Putin is not looking for the grand deal that Trump has in mind and that Trump has been promising since he was a candidate for president.

So it sounds like Zelensky in saying, sure, I'm open to a deal, kind of put the onus on Putin and in so doing exposed Putin as being much less willing to negotiate the Trump may have expected or wanted. It sounds quite shrewd on the part of Zelensky is what I'm getting at. No, it's exactly right. You might call it a kind of a pull the chair strategy. Putin has talked as though he is open to peace for a long time. He's str strong Trump along

He's drunk Trump along he's strung the world along for years and you know something that by administration officials would always say is Putin is not serious about negotiating a peace deal Putin wants victory. He wants huge gains that the Ukrainians can never accept but now with the arrival of Trump who is actually pressing this and very much wants to engineer a deal, he's finally called Putin's bluff in a way that no one else has. And Zelensky has very shrewdly created the dynamics for that to happen. So what happens after Trump starts getting angry at Putin?

Well, by late March, you see some of the first signs of Trump's frustration with Putin. In one interview, he says he's very angry and even pissed off at comments Putin has made about Zelensky saying that they're not helping the peace process and he talks about increasing sanctions on Russia. But Putin is undeterred. As the weeks go by, he's bombing and striking Ukrainian cities, hitting civilian targets with drones and missiles. And you know, there's worldwide outrage that finally even includes President Trump, who on April 24th posts on his Truth Social account, Vladimir's stop, not necessary and very bad timing in

response to a major Russian attack on Kiev. He says, let's get the peace deal done in all capital letters. So you know, this is really a kind of a creed of core from Trump. You can really sense his frustration. You know, you're screwing up my deal here, Vladimir. What's going on? I thought we were friends. Am I correct in saying that this is like the strongest language we've ever seen from Trump up until this point? You are. You are. And not only is it the strongest language, but it's such a departure from the way he

has always talked about Putin, which is to make excuses for him. Or, you know, when he's asked about Putin assassinating political opponents, he says, well, lots of people do that. So it's not only that he hasn't directly criticized Putin in this way before, it's that he's contorted himself to find ways to defend and excuse Putin. But what happens next in some ways is even more surprising. On April 26th, at the funeral for Pope Francis at the Vatican, Trump has his first meeting with Zelensky since the debacle in the Oval Office.

And this is sort of an impromptu pull-aside. We don't know that much about it, but all the vibes, you might say, were very positive. And the kind of defining aspect of what we know about it is a photograph that was published showing just Trump and Zelensky one-on-one in some large marble hall somewhere in the Vatican sitting in two chairs facing each other almost with their knees touching, locked in a very intense conversation. I remember seeing the photos. It was really stunning.

It was theatrical. And, you know, you don't want to read too much into one photograph, but this picture of the two of them said so much. There was no retinue of staffers around them. There was no media. And you could tell that they were having a serious conversation and it was not angry. It looked intense, but not angry.

And so, you know, here Trump is willing to sit down with Zelensky one-on-one, grant him that legitimacy. And you know, this is seen as a very encouraging sign for Ukraine supporters, but even more encouraging is the fact that just a few days later on April 30th, the Trump administration inks a deal with Ukraine that gives America access to Ukraine's critical minerals. And although some people worry that this is some effort by Trump to rip Ukraine off. Ukrainians are actually supportive of this because they feel that this gives Trump an investment in the future of their country that he did not have before.

So suddenly Trump is doing deals with the Ukrainians and where is Vladimir Putin? He is still holding out, not making concessions, not doing significant deals, and Trump is losing more and more patience. And something that's ominous for Vladimir Putin is on the same day he sees Zelensky at the Vatican, he again complains about Russian missile strikes into civilian areas of Ukraine and says that these attacks make him wonder whether Putin actually doesn't want to stop the war and that he's just, as Trump says it in kind of an odd terminology, just tapping me along. And at this point, Trump decides he needs to talk to Putin.

And he arranges a call with the Russian leader. And all these weeks of gamesmanship, maneuvering, and roiling frustration seems to be culminating in this one essential conversation. And to hear Trump tell it, this call with Vladimir Putin could determine whether he is willing to continue trying to mediate an end to this war. We'll be right back. So Michael, after all of this buildup, all of this anticipation, what actually happened

on the call between Putin and Trump? So 10 a.m. comes on Monday for this highly anticipated call and the two leaders are treating it very differently. For Trump, there's been all this fanfare and buildup on social media and his comments to reporters and comments from other administration officials. And he does the call from the White House. Putin does the call from a school on the Sochi coast. He's not even at the Kremlin.

He's not even in Moscow. He didn't even announce it. He didn't announce it. And it, you know, he seems to be kind of squeezing it into his schedule. For Putin, this is not the defining event of the week. And I think that symbolizes the mismatch in expectations or really a mismatch in substance. And you saw that in the way both men described this call after the fact. You know, Putin said it was informative and open and that he told Trump he would work

on a, what he called a memorandum for future peace talks, but he didn't agree to a ceasefire of any kind. He didn't make any new concessions. He certainly didn't present the call as some breakthrough or new stage of the process. Well, thank you very much, everybody. It's a real- Trump's version was a bit more upbeat, and he did tell journalists afterward

that he is still hopeful for a deal. There's a good chance we can get this done. I believe Putin wants to do it. Now, if I thought Putin didn't, why, I mean, that's what I do. still hopeful for a deal. But he clearly puts the onus on Putin. this bloodshed, this bloodbath, it's a bloodbath. Trump was blaming Putin again for how long this has gone on, and he straight up asks Putin, when is this war going to end? He's clearly frustrated or maybe disappointed that Putin has not changed his position, but it's not particularly angry or threatening. Big egos involved, I tell you.

Big egos involved, but I think something's going to happen. You get the sense that Trump has reached his own limits. And I did say also, if I thought that you couldn't do it, I'd step away because what are you going to do? It seems that he's reaching a point where he's ready to just wash his hands of both of them. Again, this was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation.

He says that maybe others could help out, but that it just might not be worth it to try to make this deal. And thank you all very much. Thank you. Wow. Wait. So does that mean that after all this time, after Trump pledging to end the war, after Trump trying to bring these two sides to the table, does that mean that the US is out?

Like, does that mean that Trump is saying, like, I give up? Well, it's always hard to know with Trump. That would seem to be the implication. On the other hand, Trump has invested a lot of time and a fair amount of political capital into this process and He's come up completely empty-handed so Mm-hmm, you know, is he really serious? Is he is he really ready to walk away? And

even if he does That raises an entirely new set of questions about where he goes from here. What would it mean for Ukraine though, if the United States did just say, okay, we're done with this? Like, I'm unclear, are we still giving them weapons? Like, are we still supporting them in some way?

Well, the US continues to provide Ukraine with some assistance that was previously approved by Congress under the Biden administration and continues to provide intelligence sharing to Ukraine, which is really, really important because we have such a sophisticated intelligence infrastructure. So this means, among other things, our know, our satellites, which can see Russian positions and other sources of intelligence we have on Russia's military plans and operations. Hugely important to Ukraine.

The question is, what will happen a few weeks and months from now if Trump decides he wants to wash his hands of these negotiations? Would he cut off the intelligence assistance? Will he, in his budget request to Congress, ask for more support for Ukraine, either military or economic? And if not, to what degree could Europe fill the gap? Most analysts say that Europe can do a fair amount, but not enough to prevent Ukraine's position from being severely weakened over time. And this, by the way, is exactly why many people believe this is what Putin has wanted

all along. For Trump to grow impatient, to give up, to walk away, and that gives Russia a major military advantage. And Putin can just take what he wants eventually. How should we think about the way that Trump relates to other superpower rivals at this stage in his second term? Like how he both tries to make deals with them, but also how he tries to pressure them. Look, I think that every world leader is watching this process and trying to figure out how

Trump operates. But I think that this Ukraine saga has reinforced some constants with Donald Trump that world leaders will be paying very close attention to. Now one of them is that what animates Trump possibly more than anything else is the desire to cut a deal. And sometimes it may not even be a very real deal. It may be something that he's able to call a great deal that doesn't have a lot of substance to it. And so you've seen both Zelensky and Putin play to that.

I also think that this shows that Trump can be a very intimidating bully, particularly on social media or in press conferences with reporters. But what happened when he was face-to-face or on the phone with those guys? He didn't threaten them. He didn't bluster and bully by any account. And I think what that tells you is that Trump says a lot of things for public consumption. He likes to posture a lot and talk tough. But ultimately, and particularly if it's in the service of cutting a deal, it doesn't mean that that's where his head is really at or that he's going to let those resentments get in the way of what he perceives to be

his tactical interest at any given moment. I just sort of wonder if this whole saga so far, Trump going from optimism to anger to maybe apathy with some other motions in between with no change in outcome. Putin has remained the same in what he wants this entire time. And so I just sort of wonder if this whole evolution has just showed us that Trump is learning that he cannot pressure or sweet talk or make a deal out of this problem. Like what people said about the stock market, right? He cannot bully the stock market into giving what he wants and he could not pressure Putin into giving him what he wants

I think that's right. Now. I've heard people say that Trump Came into this second term riding higher feeling stronger He had been around the block once before as president Mm-hmm And he may have thought he could come in and get things done really fast in a way that he couldn't do in his first term.

But the world is a really complicated, difficult place, and dealing with Vladimir Putin, any experienced diplomat will tell you, is one of the great challenges in foreign affairs. And I'm sometimes reminded of a saying that is attributed to the Taliban in Afghanistan, when the US spent 20 years trying to outfight the Taliban and defeat them. And the saying was, you have the watches, but we have the time. And the idea behind that was you may be more technologically sophisticated, more advanced, more powerful, but we can just wait you out. We're here and we're not going anywhere. And I think that, you know, that partly explains how Vladimir Putin sees this. He's got to

get through this sort of quaint little adventure of the American president who wants a nice deal, but he's playing a much longer game. And he may have calculated that Trump will get frustrated and storm off. And at the moment, it looks like that might be exactly what's happening. Michael, thank you so much. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Boston said that the Trump administration apparently had violated an order he issued by flying a Burmese immigrant to South Sudan without first giving him enough time to challenge his removal. Judge Brian Murphy ordered a government lawyer to find out exactly where the plane was and whether it could be turned around mid-flight. He also warned that everyone involved in the flight could face criminal contempt sanctions. Lawyers for the Burmese migrant said that a man from Vietnam was also deported on the same plane, a claim that the Justice Department lawyers

would not confirm, and it was not clear how many other migrants were on the plane or what their home countries were. The judge's original ruling, from April, ordered the administration not to deport migrants to countries other than their own without first giving them 15 days notice to raise concerns. And Canada, Britain, and France have sharply condemned Israel for its proposed plans to escalate the war in Gaza, calling them, quote, disproportionate and egregious. The joint statement follows a threat from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

to take control of Gaza at a time when the United Nations is warning that the population faces an imminent famine. Today's episode was produced by Shannon Lin, Anna Foley, and Jessica Chung, with help from Carlos Prieto. It was edited by Patricia Willans and Maria Byrne, contains original music by Diane Wong and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Anton Trinovsky.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.