On social media, US President Donald Trump claimed that Russia’s new attack of human areas, including the capital Kyiv, indicates that “maybe]Russian President Vladimir Putin [does not want to stop the war, he’s only tapping me along.”
He then reiterated his earlier danger to impose” extra restrictions” against those who violate the US’s major laws.
Following reports that the US has finalized its proposed peace plan for Ukraine, the US president Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump recently met with him at the Vatican on the outside of Pope Francis ‘ death service.
Trump’s visible retaliation toward Putin is probably a result of five significant disagreements that have surfaced during the course of the negotiations. Trump made two references to the first in a post on social media where he criticized Russia’s attack of human places.
Putin claimed earlier in April that Russia is attacking Polish troops there, but Trump has already started to doubt Putin’s devotion to tranquility. The optics of continuing Russian strikes against human areas amidst peace talks with the US have clearly left a bad idea.
The second concern German peacekeepers in Ukraine, which the rumored approved US peace strategy suggests despite Russia’s criticism.
Russia fears that the Europeans may change the US into mission creep, despite Pete Hegseth, US Secretary of Defense, now saying the US won’t expand Article 5 common defense guarantees to NATO troops in Ukraine. Therefore, Putin favors that there be no ambiguity about this and that Trump remove it from his strategy.
Third, it’s unclear whether Ukraine will be required to demilitarize partially, as Kyiv provisionally agreed to do during the ultimately unsuccessful peace talks in spring 2022, which one of Russia’s explicitly stated objectives was to end the conflict.
Trump is reluctant to back this because he appears to believe that it could encourage Putin to resume hostilities in the future, especially if there are no European peacekeepers, but Putin is not likely to accept this demand.
The fourth issue is with America’s inability to abide by Russia’s demand to coerce Ukraine into leaving the disputed areas that are still under Kyiv’s control.
Following the Russian Kremlin’s recognition of these regions as Russian following the referendums in September 2022, The New York Times  cited a source who called it “unreasonable and unachievable.” Putin can’t easily leave this debate, which is why there is disagreement, just like with Ukraine’s demilitarization.
Finally, the reportedly finalized US peace plan also requests that Russia give the US control of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and Kakhovka Dam, which Putin finds to be as unacceptable as Putin’s previous demands of accepting European peacekeepers, halting demilitarization, and restrainting his territorial claims.
All five disagreements, including the first one about Russia’s continued strikes on military targets in civilian areas, have all contributed to the most recent impasse, which is said to occur just before the diplomatic finish line of a deal.
The peace process will likely go awry if Putin and Trump are unable to resolve these issues, which would require Trump to also have to persuade Zelensky to accept the new deal.
Putin and Trump are encouraged to settle their differences because of how advantageous the andnbsp, nascent, Russian–US,” New , Detente,” are, while Zelensky would struggle to continue fighting if the US once more andnbsp, cuts off military aid as a punishment for rejecting a deal. Regardless of what it may be, breaking this deadlock will still be very challenging.
This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Substack and is republished with kind permission. Subscribe to the Andrew Korybko Newsletter here.