United States, in omnipresent figure of its president Donald Trump, seems willing to finish once and for all the invasion of Ukraine. It happens that trying to reproduce the same diplomatic “success” that is exhibited after the agreement in Gaza runs into two problems nuclear: on the one hand, the attempt to impose an agreement on Russia calls into question the sovereignty and legitimacy of the process and pushes Moscow to react. On the other hand, perhaps more dangerous, the pressure campaign that is articulated around the threat with long range missiles drastically increases the risk of an escalation that is difficult to control.
From ambiguity to challenge. For a long time, Trump’s foreign policy toward Russia and Ukraine moved between deference and confusiona mix of praise for Putin, vague warnings and broken promises to kyiv. But in recent weeks, something has changed.
trump has radically changed his speech, going from suggesting that Ukraine should accept territorial losses to presenting himself as the man capable of ending the war. What started as a rhetorical gesture before the UN has become a political process that seeks to consolidate the role of the United States as arbiter of the conflict, with a mix of military pressure, transactional diplomacy and calculated threat.
Change and breakup. Trump, who had historically shown a almost personal indulgence towards Putin, surprised his allies and his critics with a speech in which rated Russia “paper tiger” and stated that Ukraine can recover all your territory with the support of Europe and NATO. This change, announced after his meeting with Zelensky and Macron, marks an abandonment of his traditional strategy of avoiding direct confrontations with Moscow.
However, behind the turn there does not seem to be an articulated policy yet, but rather a combination of gestures: hints of sanctions, threats of retaliation and an explicit desire to reintroduce the idea of force as an instrument of negotiation. What was once indifference toward kyiv has become an instrumental interest, mixing rivalry with Putin and a desire to demonstrate international leadership.
Tomahawks and ultimatums. The most visible symbol of this transformation is the word that has become recurrent in the communications from Washington: Tomahawk. Trump has openly threatened to supply Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles if Putin does not agree to reopen peace negotiations, an ultimatum which has put the Kremlin on alert. Moscow has responded calling the measure a “qualitatively new escalation” and warning that it could not distinguish whether the missiles carry nuclear warheads or not.
For Trump, however, the announcement meets a double function: reinforces your image as a negotiator who commands respect and pressures Putin to prevent him from prolonging a war he can no longer win. Zelensky, for his part, sees the possibility of obtaining Tomahawks as not only a military instrument. but psychological: the threat of its use would be enough to push Russia to the negotiation table. The mere fact of discussing its delivery represents a break with the caution of the Biden erain which Washington rejected outright any action that could be considered direct aggression.
From Gaza to Ukraine: export a model. The partial success of ceasefire in Gaza has offered Trump a narrative of diplomatic victory that he is now trying to convey on the European front. After freeing the Israeli hostages and achieving a temporary cessation of hostilities, the American president declared that his next objective was to “focus on Russia” and end the war in Ukraine. What is apparently a humanitarian movement also responds to a repositioning strategy global: demonstrate that Washington can impose order in both the Middle East and Europe without needing to deploy large military contingents.
Trump has presented this new stage under a classic concept that has republished with pragmatism: “peace through strength.” It is the same logic that he seeks to apply with Putin (that is, not from conciliation, but from a credible threat). Ukraine, which for months feigned faith in some sterile negotiations to ingratiate himself with the White House, now perceives a window of opportunity: to replace the dialogue tables with the delivery of advanced weapons that change the balance of the battlefield.
A military agreement. The visit of a Ukrainian delegation to Washington, led by Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, has sealed the new phase. The negotiators arrived with a list of valued acquisitions in 90,000 million of dollars, including Patriot anti-aircraft systemslong-range missiles and drone co-production agreements.
Zelensky has learned to speak Trump’s language: that of transactions. It is no longer about asking for help out of solidarity, but rather offer “mega deals” that benefit both parties, presenting Ukraine as a profitable partner for the US military industry. The White House, in turn, has implicitly accepted that the talks with Moscow they are sold outand that only a substantial increase in military pressure will be able to force Putin to negotiate from weakness.
The new strategic calculation. If you like, the Kremlin also crosses a point operational fatigue. Its territorial advances have become more marginal, and Zelensky himself has taken it upon himself to remember this in Washington with maps and figures: in a thousand days of war, Russia has barely conquered less than one percent of additional Ukrainian territory from 2022.
The narrative of inevitable victory fades, and Trump seems to have understood. His speech on networks, in which stated that Ukraine is “in a position to recover his entire country in its original form,” was interpreted as confirmation of that change in perception. In other words: it is no longer about keeping a conflict frozen, but about precipitating its outcome through technological superiority and Russian economic collapse.
The paradox. Paradoxically, the trump turn does not imply a return to the liberal idealism that defined US foreign policy for decades, but rather a pragmatism that mixes interests, spectacle and coercion. Washington does not seek to rebuild Ukraine, but rather to close a war that has stopped serving its image of power.
From that perspective, the American president does not seem to intend a democratic crusade against Moscow, but to demonstrate that under his rule the United States returns to impose results. If Putin gives in, Trump can present it as a victory for his personal diplomacy, and if he doesn’t, the shipping Tomahawks It will serve as proof that he was firm to the end.
From rhetoric to reality. So, the change of course American opens a new scenario: for the first time since 2022, Washington seems willing to use the threat of strategic weaponry as a diplomatic lever. If the plan comes to fruition, Ukraine would gain the ability to strike deep into Russian territory, a line that, as we said, the Biden administration always refused to cross.
Europe, meanwhile, watches with ambivalence: it celebrates the possibility of an outcome, but fears an escalation that would drag it into direct confrontation. And at the center of this game of forces, Ukraine emerges not as a victim, but as a decisive actor that he has learned to negotiate with the White House on his own terms.
War as a currency of power. What seems clear is that the new cycle initiated by Trump redefines the relationship between diplomacy and military force. Ukraine, tired of empty tables and symbolic promisesseems to have found in American pragmatism a temporary ally to achieve its objective: to impose peace through pressure.
The White House, for its part, has rediscovered with Trump that global leadership is not exercised from neutrality, but from the ability to dictate the terms of the conflict. to impose them. If Tomahawk missiles they end up flying over the Ukrainian sky (although they are never launched), their mere existence will represent the culmination of a strategy where the threat It becomes an argument, and the war, a tool to recover the lost authority of the United States on the world stage.
Of course, the scenario entails two nuclear problems to solve. Neither Russia is Gaza, nor Tomahawks They were on the table before.
Image | VA Comm, Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, PicrylPresident Of Ukraine
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