Da, tovarisch. In fact, Russia missed it by a country mile, even while Donald Trump literally blocked (arms) traffic to allow Vladimir Putin months to take said off-ramp. It’s not even too late now to change directions, but time is running short.
Will Russia recognize that? The Washington Post reports today that Russians have belatedly gotten the message from Trump’s shift in tone over the last few weeks. They now wonder whether Putin is too full of himself to realize it as well before the 50-day final window closes. One problem may be the window itself, though:
Since the 50 days span the middle of Russia’s summer offensive during the peak fighting season, the U.S. deadline will probably allow Moscow’s push to continue. “Trump’s statement turned out to be much weaker than anyone expected,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
But Trump’s new weapons deal and his increasing criticism of Putin’s grinding military campaign have sparked an uneasiness among some factions of the Russian elite over the deepening conflict and fears that Putin could overplay his hand.
“The number of those who are upset with Putin for the fact that he could have stopped the war but didn’t do it is growing,” Stanovaya said. “It is not a question of whether such a deal was ever genuinely possible, but rather a matter of prevailing sentiment — a belief that there was a moment of opportunity, unilaterally squandered due to Putin’s obstinacy and irrationality.”
Trump should have taken a harder line all along, but chose instead to try allowing Putin to save face while agreeing to end any claims on further Ukrainian territory. The massive drone attacks on Kyiv and civilian targets elsewhere appear to have been the catalyst for Trump’s shift, along with a growing sense of getting played by the former KGB agent, which Trump openly referenced this week. The timing of the 50-day window likely has less to do with the “offensive season” for Russian troops than it does for sending a message that Trump wants a deal but on his terms, and Trump’s penchant for sticking to deadlines as seen recently at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
Besides, Russia has been at war for over three years now. Despite massive advantages in manpower and materiel, the Russian military has barely gained any territory they didn’t control after 2014 in well over 1100 days. An additional 50 days now is not going to make much difference, especially with arms flowing once again to Ukraine.
That window matters more to Russia than it does to the US. Russia has managed to protect its economy and Putin’s political standing largely through backstopping it with their reserves, which has kept sanctions from biting too hard. The reserves are nearly gone now, the WaPo notes, and with it any more remaining flexibility even under the current sanctions environment. If Trump starts forcing Russian trading partners to choose between the US market and the Russian market — a decision that Trump’s threatened 100% tariffs will create — most if not all will choose the US.
And Russians not named Putin are starting to realize it, at least outside the Kremlin:
One by one, Russian officials attending last month’s St. Petersburg economic forum warned that the Russian economy was “overcooling,” as investment dried up and nonpayments soared. The head of one of Russia’s biggest steel producers, Severstal, warned of production cuts and plant closures in the Russian steel industry, while Alexander Shokhin, the influential head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, warned that many companies were in “a pre-default situation” as a debt crisis loomed.
Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina said the reserves that had allowed the Russian economy to grow for two years under conditions of war have been “exhausted.”
“Credit crisis. Recession. It is all clear to everyone. But the political will is pointed in the other direction,” said a Russian official speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. The Kremlin “is banging the drum for war. The mood is for war to a victorious end. Of course, entrepreneurs and economists are calling for caution and talks. But the military and diplomats are calling for a war to the very end. At the current moment, the discourse is only about removing the roots of the conflict and how we will take all of the territory.”
The regime seems very inclined to keep pushing forward, but to what end? At best, Putin is stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy. Even if he managed to somehow conquer all of Ukraine now, the payoff for that would hardly make up for the massive losses and expenditures of this military campaign, not to mention the losses of hundreds of thousands of young Russian men and women. Nor would any of those losses stop; Russian troops occupying ethnic-Ukrainian territory would be subjected to constant partisan warfare and insurgency, which they haven’t experienced so much yet as Russian forces mainly remain in ethnic-Russian territory that Putin already controlled prior to his invasion in February 2022.
Putin and his regime won’t back down because they don’t want to back down. Putin still wants to recreate the Russian empire by conquest, even though the last three years show Russia as economically and militarily incapable of the conquest, let alone the maintenance of an empire. The erosion of their economy, not to mention the massive losses of sons and daughters to this obsessive fantasy, will create the conditions for a domestic implosion. Trump is offering Putin a way to declare victory and depart the field before that kind of crisis strikes Moscow, but megalomaniacs are not easily deflected from their delusions. Deadlines do have a clarifying effect, though, and perhaps this one will force the oligarchs supporting Putin to push him back to reality.
