Within the quiet change of Trump administration in Ukraine

When the American Vice President, JD Vance, was asked about the war in Ukraine in a Washington Foreign Policy Forum last week, diplomats expected Maga-style criticism in Kiev and Russia’s veiled sympathy.

Instead, they felt something very different. Vance said about a set of Russian proposals to end the conflict: “We think they ask too much.”

Attendees were surprised. Vance was one of the main protagonists of the infamous Ara Oval showdown In February, when he entered the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and accused him of not showing enough thanks to the United States for his support, a scene that seemed to take a complete rupture of the relations between Kiev and Washington.

Vance’s comments were part of a significant change in tone for the Trump administration. North -American officials seem more and more impatient with Vladimir Putin, as suspicions grow than the Russian leader, rather than ZelenskyyIt can be the biggest obstacle to peace.

“The North -Americans had this simplistic idea: we love Russia, we press on Zelenskyy and we will get an agreement,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, the former German ambassador to the United States whom Vance made his comment on last week’s Forum. “It turned out that Russia simply lovely is not enough.”

International efforts to end the war have intensified in recent days. According to Putin, Russia and Ukraine’s suggestion should be held Direct talks in Turkey Thursday, although it is unclear if the Russian leader will attend in a personalized way.

On Tuesday, a White House official said that the Secretary of State -American Marco Rubio and the special envoys of Trump Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg will participate.

But Trump’s most desired goal, a high fire that could lead to peace negotiations and ending the war, so far avoided it. Putin has rejected international calls to stop the fighting, despite threats to western powers, including the United States, of new hard sanctions.

Russia’s apparent intransigence is demonstrating an irritating TrumpSay observers. “Feel the frustration in his communication,” said Michael McFaul, a former United States ambassador in Russia. “It may understand that he has given up too much and has not obtained anything in return.”

In fact, under one of the teams that circulated in the United States last month to end the war, Washington expressed his will to recognize the Russian government on Crimea, a concession that was angry Ukraine and the EU, but was rejected by Putin.

Trump’s social media publications reflect their apparent impatience. At the end of April, after Russia said goodbye to Missiles in civilian areas of Ukraine, he said that he thought the Kremlin was “simply touching -me” and threatened to impose secondary and banking sanctions in Moscow.

“Trump concludes that Putin is not a friend of the United States,” said Bill Taylor, who has been an ambassador of the United States to Ukraine since 2006-09. “There is a recognition that should not be trusted.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to blame Ukrainians due to the continuous struggle. In recent weeks, Zelenskyy has left his way to run as a cooperative partner, supporting the demands for cessation of fire. On Sunday he agreed to Putin’s proposal for direct conversations in Turkey after Trump urged him to accept it.

Relations between Kyiv and Washington have partly rejected from the Oval Office in February thanks to the mineral agreement that opens a path to joint investments to Ukraine’s critical resources in both countries.

Ukrainian officials say that the agreement makes it more likely that the United States will continue to support the defense of Ukraine. “Now Trump has the skin in the game,” one said.

But it is still unclear whether Trump has really changed his sympathy in Ukraine or is willing to punish Russia for his recalciation.

Although most western leaders and Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, were critical of the bidding on Putin of direct conversations, saying that it should first be a cessation of fire, Trump praised the game of the Russian leader, and made a “ potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine. ”

“Trump definitely sees that Putin does not play ball,” said Eric Green, a former President Joe Biden assistant to the National Security Council, who is now a non -resident scholar in the Carnegie endowment for international peace thought. “But I’m not convinced that the consequence of this will be a significant pressure on Putin.”

Ischinger said he was “delighted” for Vance to move to Russia and that the North -American and European positions in the war in Ukraine were “convergent”. But the former German ambassador to the United States added that the Vice President “did not take the next logical step, which would have been to say that we must now turn the Russian snails.”

However, other North -American politicians are eager to get up with Moscow. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, has said that he has a bipartisan support for a bill that would apply “bone crushing” sanctions in Russia, including a 500 percent rate to imports from countries that buy his oil and gas, if Putin does not begin to negotiate severe to end the war.

The bill has been supported by 72 senators, a sign that support to Ukraine is still strong in Capitol Hill.

“These sanctions represent the Opinion of the Senate that we see the main badger Russia,” Graham told journalists at the end of last month. Putin, he added, “would be a huge mistake to try to play Trump.”

In the meantime, experts say that Russia is banking the President of the United States, losing patience with the peace process. “Putin plays a long game and thinks he has time next to him,” McFaul said. “It is calculating that Trump will lose interest and that the North -Americans will cut military assistance and this will cause the Ukrainian army to be weaker,” said the former United States ambassador to Russia.

Others believe that the danger that the President of the United States leaves Ukraine has declined in recent weeks.

Thomas Graham, a distinguished companion from the Foreign Relations Council and former senior director of Russia on National Security Council staff, said that Trump would fight to achieve one of his main goals (a reestablishment of Russia relationships) without solving the Ukraine problem.

“There is too much at stake,” he said. “Yes, I could still go away from Ukraine, but if it does, it would seem a failure.”

Additional Reports of Christopher Miller in Kyiv