Trump Is Continuing The Ukraine Proxy War.

Trump is killing any chance at peace in Ukraine, and escalating further with Russia.

After campaigning on a promise to end the proxy war in Ukraine “on day one,” Trump is now ramping up the war and killing any prospect of peace.

After failing to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, Donald Trump has announced that he “had approved a new tranche of weapons to Ukraine worth ‘billions of dollars.’” (10 billion in total according to the Washington Post)

He has announced that he is selling U.S. weapons to Europe, which will then give them to Ukraine.

The New York Times reported that these weapons will include “additional U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems” with the possibility of “surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile System that would come with broader authority to strike deeper into Russia” and even “Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles” which “have a longer range than the ATACMS and can be fired from F-16 fighter jets that European allies have sent to Ukraine.”

Trump has also given Putin a 50-day deadline to end the war in Ukraine or else he will “impose 100% tariffs on countries trading with Russia” and on Russia itself.

In reality, this policy will only escalate the war, will not bring Russia to the negotiating table, and will have a disastrous effect on American trade policy and the American economy.

Trump is Playing With World War Three.

During his confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February of this year, Trump accused him of “gambling with World War Three”.

Now, Trump is encouraging Zelensky to “gamble with World War Three” using U.S. weapons.

David Ignatius in the Washington Post reported, “What Trump didn’t talk about is that the military assistance might also include authorization for some powerful new offensive weapons. I’m told by a source involved in the decision that this is likely to include permission to use the 18 long-range ATACMS missiles now in Ukraine at their full range of 300 kilometers (about 190 miles). That wouldn’t reach all the way to Moscow or St. Petersburg, but it would strike military bases, airfields, and supply depots deep inside Russia that are now out of range. The package might also include more ATACMS.”

Ignatius reported that Trump went even further than the Biden administration and considered sending Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine and supporting them in firing at Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Ignatius wrote, “Trump also considered sending Tomahawk cruise missiles, the same weapons fired against Iranian targets last month. If fired from Ukraine, these could hit Moscow and St. Petersburg, and they were included in discussion as late as Friday. But the Tomahawks are off the delivery list for now, I’m told. They could be deployed later if Trump wants even more leverage.”

According to the Financial Times, “Donald Trump has privately encouraged Ukraine to step up deep strikes on Russian territory, even asking Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether he could strike Moscow if the US provided long-range weapons, according to people briefed on the discussions.”

Reportedly, Trump said to Zelensky, “Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? . . . Can you hit St Petersburg too?” to which Zelensky replied, “Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons”.

The Financial Times reported that “Trump signalled his backing for the idea, describing the strategy as intended to ‘make them [Russians] feel the pain’ and force the Kremlin to the negotiating table, according to the two people briefed on the call.”

Reportedly, the Trump administration has been signaling support for “bringing the war to the Moscowvites”. The Financial Times wrote, “A western official, who had been informed of the call, said the conversation reflected a growing desire among Ukraine’s western partners to supply long-range weapons capable of ‘bringing the war to Muscovites’ — a sentiment echoed privately by American officials in recent weeks.”

The Financial Times even noted that this policy will further escalate the chances of a nuclear war, writing, “Following the Atacms strikes, Russia also published an updated version of its nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for potential use. The changes could envision a Russian nuclear first strike against the US, UK and France — Nato’s three nuclear powers — in response to Ukraine’s strikes on Russia with weapons such as the Atacms and Storm Shadow missiles. Washington has at times warned Ukraine off using them to strike deep inside Russia, but those constraints appear to be loosening now.”

(Emphasis: Mine)

More Weapons Will Only Prolong the War.

Trump’s new weapons to Ukraine and the threat of sanctions are unlikely to end the conflict in Ukraine, and will in all likelihood make peace more unlikely.

Russia has made major advances in Ukraine recently.

As analyst Ted Snider noted in the American Conservative, “In June, the Russian armed forces captured 556 square kilometers of land, which is the largest loss of land for Ukraine in one month since at least November 2024 and a lot of territory in the context of a grinding war of attrition.”

He also noted, “Russia has continually made gains farther west, and recently captured the valuable lithium deposits of the Dobra lithium fields near Shevchenko in western Donetsk. The loss is a crucial one for Ukraine because such resources were supposed to maintain Washington’s interest in the mineral agreement Trump recently signed with Kiev that substituted for security guarantees for Ukraine.”

He also noted that “Ukraine is being pounded by increasingly large barrages of drones and missiles. The significance of the large barrages goes beyond the targets they hit. They are depleting Ukrainian air defenses and opening a future where Russia is unchecked in the sky and Ukraine is vulnerable and defenseless. Short of missiles for their air defense, Ukraine has been forced to put its valuable F-16 fighter jets into service shooting down drones and missiles. In late June, one of those fighter jets crashed, and one of Ukraine’s few pilots trained to fly the advanced jets was killed defending Ukrainian skies from Russian missiles and drones.”

Putin’s strategy has been to continue the war in hopes that it will force the West and Ukraine to give in to all of his demands. As Eldar Mamedov noted in Responsible Statecraft, “Putin seems convinced his key demands — Ukraine’s neutrality, territorial concessions in the Donbas and Crimea, and a downsized Ukrainian military — are more achievable through war than diplomacy.”

Snider argued that the new weapons from the Trump administration to Ukraine, “will prolong the struggle and the pain but not affect the outcome of the war.”

Similarly, Ian Proud, who was a senior officer at the British Embassy in Moscow from 2014 to 2019, argued that “Pumping more weapons into the war won’t help Ukraine win” and that Trump should instead “press for compromise from all sides in the conflict.”

Proud argued that “providing more ‘defensive’ weapons won’t help Ukraine win, though it may arrest the speed of defeat. Not providing weapons won’t help Russia secure a spectacular breakthrough either.”

Similarly, Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow at the Defense Priorities think tank, argued, “Putin has a clear advantage on the battlefield, and the new aid arrangement in which Europe will buy U.S. weapons to send to Ukraine is unlikely to change this”.

She noted that “What weapons Europe can send quickly — purchased from the United States or taken from their own stocks — will be small in number and limited in type” and that “defensive weapons like Patriot systems and interceptors — the focus of much fanfare during today’s big announcement — will help protect Ukrainian civilians but do little to reinforce Ukraine’s already strained front lines.”

She also argued that “Putin’s continued strikes on Ukrainian cities and decision to press forward with a summer offensive are evidence of his confidence in Russia’s ability to persist militarily for the foreseeable future. It is unlikely the meager military aid package announced on Monday will change his mind on this score.”

Disastrous Sanctions Policy

Even more disastrous is Trump’s threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on Russia and secondary sanctions on Russian trading partners if they do not end the war in 50 days.

As Jennifer Kavanagh noted “The threat is unlikely to change Putin’s calculus, however, or bring the conflict to a near-term conclusion. Instead, Trump’s deadline is likely to make his own life more difficult, limiting his future flexibility, putting the settlement he craves farther out of reach, and forcing him to take steps that harm rather than advance U.S. interests.”

She noted that primary sanctions on Russia will not have much of an effect, writing “The United States imported only about $3 billion in goods from Russia in 2024, meaning that U.S. tariffs will impose little, if any, new costs on Moscow.”

She noted that while secondary sanctions on Russia’s trading partners like China, the European Union, and India could have “potential consequences for Russia”, “it would also create political and economic complications for Washington that undermine the credibility of Trump’s threat and its effectiveness as a tool of coercion”.

She noted that if Trump sanctions Europe or India, it would “disrupt and set back ongoing U.S. negotiations with important U.S. trade partners and put pressure on the U.S. economy” and also “force Trump to impose painful economic punishments on crucial security partners”.

She noted that “Because of these concerns, the United States has historically enforced secondary sanctions only sporadically and selectively, often targeting adversaries but not allies. The same would likely be true in this case.”

She also noted that secondary sanctions are not certain to have a drastic effect on the Russian economy, writing, “Moreover, there is no guarantee that even secondary sanctions would cut off Russian revenues, as Moscow has become skilled at using black market transfers and its ‘shadow fleet’ to circumvent U.S. and European economic pressure.”

She wrote that “Putin and the Russian economy have shown tremendous resilience to the economic weapons that the United States and its allies have unleashed so far, and there is no reason to expect this time to be different. In fact, the Russian stock market rose almost three percent after Trump’s announcement, suggesting Russian investors share this assessment. As a result, Putin is unlikely to be fearful of Trump’s economic intimidation or sensitive to even the moderate costs additional U.S. economic warfare might impose.”

She noted that “Trump’s newest deadline, like those that he has issued before, is unlikely to factor into Putin’s decision-making or to change the trajectory of the war. Putin has staked far too much on the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine to stop fighting before achieving his basic objectives or to settle for an unsatisfactory deal in response to an artificial and U.S.-imposed deadline while he still has the military advantage” and that “Rather than bringing peace closer by forcing Putin the negotiating table, Trump’s threats may make near-term resolution less likely, both by hardening Putin’s resolve and by placing at risk newly opened channels of communication between the United States and Russia”.

Ian Proud came to a similar conclusion, writing that “At no point since 2014 has it appeared remotely likely that sanctions would change President Putin’s stance towards Ukraine.”

He also argued that “backing secondary sanctions will kill prospects for peace”.

He wrote that “in addition to killing prospects of peace in Ukraine, it will cause self-harm to the U.S. economy — the tariffs would affect trade with a number of major U.S. partners including the EU, Taiwan, and China — and to America’s increasingly tarnished world standing.”

He noted that imposing tariffs on countries such as China would not make them stop trading with Russia, but instead launch another trade war, writing, “Attempting to undermine Russia by pushing vast tariffs against its main trading partners simply will not work. Anyone who believes that China will suddenly stop importing Russian oil against the threat of U.S. sanctions is a fool or deliberately disingenuous. As it did earlier this year, China will simply respond with tit for tat tariffs against Washington”.

He also noted that in February of 2022, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, made this exact point, writing, “As far back as February 2022, the day after the war in Ukraine started, Tulsi Gabbard, now U.S. Director of National Intelligence, was quoted as saying, ‘sanctions don’t work… What we do know is that they will increase suffering and hardship for the American people. And this is (the) whole problem with the Biden administration: They are so focused on how do we punish Putin that they don’t care and are not focused on what is actually in the best interests of the American people’”.

“Meanwhile,” he noted, “Russia will continue to prosecute its grinding war against Ukraine with devastating consequences for that country.”

Another Campaign Promise Failed.

Just like his promise to start “no new wars” in the Middle East, or his promise to release the Jeffrey Epstein list, Trump is going back on his promise to end the Ukraine proxy war and is continuing it, possibly with even more escalatory and disastrous consequences.

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