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News analysis
The Kremlin has withstood pressure for an immediate cease-fire as a precondition for peace talks, but the Russian president’s push for normalizing relations with the United States appears in limbo.
May 20, 2025Updated 9:49 a.m. ET
Since his invasion in 2022, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has wanted to end the war in Ukraine on his terms. And in the complex diplomatic maneuvers of recent weeks, the Russian leader has been able to defend his approach to negotiate a comprehensive peace deal while continuing to wage war in Ukraine, which he believes is going his way.
His hard-line position has withstood pressure from Ukraine, from the European Union and, until recently, from the United States for an immediate cease-fire. After speaking with Mr. Putin by phone on Monday, President Trump said that he welcomed direct peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, in effect making a final break with his earlier promise to bring a swift end to the conflict.
But Mr. Putin’s diplomatic victory could undermine, or at the very least delay, his broader economic goals to normalize relations with the United States.
After speaking with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump emphasized that American economic rapprochement with Russia would come after peace in Ukraine, not before. If Mr. Trump keeps the two issues intertwined, it could confine Russia to an economic purgatory, with little immediate chance of getting relief from Western sanctions or of bringing the foreign investment dangled by Mr. Trump.
“Russia wants to do large-scale trade with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on Monday after the call.
Vice President JD Vance made the same point in even starker terms.
“Look, there are a lot of economic benefits to thawing relations between Russia and the rest of the world, but you’re not going to get those benefits if you keep on killing a lot of innocent people,” he told reporters on Monday after meeting President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Rome the previous day. The Kremlin said that the war in Ukraine had been just one of the issues discussed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump, and that the leaders remained committed to a broader reset.
