In February 2022, when Putin invaded Ukraine, Trump called him “a genius.” But perhaps a literary explanation should be added. Putin knows how to wait, remaining faithful to Kutuzov’s words in “War and Peace,” which considered “time and patience” to be the best weapons of war. Trump, not known for patience, is hyperactive, wants everything at once. But in doing so, he fails to realize that among the few cards in Putin’s hand, he himself is one of them.
By Paolo VALENTINO
Like the news of Mark Twain’s death, the news of the Trump-Putin summit in Budapest has been greatly exaggerated. “I don’t want an unnecessary summit, I don’t want to waste time waiting to see what happens,” the US president said, once again making a change in his relationship with the Russian leader. In the past nine months, Trump has tried everything and the opposite. He has threatened (but never followed through on) imposing new sanctions on Moscow and providing more dangerous weapons to Kiev, then pulled it all back for nothing after a “productive phone call” with Putin.
On the other hand, he has publicly and privately humiliated President Zelensky, stopped supplies of military aid to Ukraine, but then agreed to sell them to the Europeans to pass on to Kiev.
But despite his efforts, this remains the only conflict in Eastern Europe that Trump has failed to stop, while he claims to have closed eight others: Israel and Iran, Rwanda and Congo, Thailand and Cambodia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, Serbia and Kosovo, India and Pakistan. As for the latest and most complicated conflict, that between Israel and Hamas, there is no doubt that Trump has achieved a semi-miracle in Gaza, albeit a fragile one that needs to be verified in practice. Extraordinary and unusual circumstances have helped.
Israel’s attack on Qatar, which angered Gulf allies, gave Trump a “hand” to force Netanyahu to accept the deal. But for his part, he had the unlimited support he has always given the Israeli leader in every case and for every choice: from recognizing Jerusalem as the capital, to the legality of settlements in the West Bank, and most recently the military campaign against Tehran.
Strong political and economic relations with Arab countries in the Middle East ultimately gave him the diplomatic clout to force the deal. In Ukraine, as in Gaza, Trump sees the end of the war primarily as a business opportunity, profits for his family and friends, and an important step towards a Nobel Peace Prize, which has become a real obsession. But in this case, unlike in the Middle East, the American side has much less influence and leverage. For two different and almost opposite reasons. The first is that it is not true that Zelensky does not have the cards in his hand. First, the growing support of European allies, the much-scorned coalition of “volunteers,” which is now approaching the decision to use part of Russian funds frozen by sanctions to provide a loan of 140 billion euros to Ukraine, with which it will finance the purchase of weapons.
This would allow Kiev to continue its military efforts for a long time. Also on Zelensky’s cards are Kiev’s growing ability to strike Russian refineries and weapons factories with drones, and Moscow’s recruitment problems, which in 2025 alone lost 100 soldiers, according to the Economist, which is six times more than the total number of Soviet casualties in the ten years of the war in Afghanistan.
The second reason takes us to more complicated terrain, the mystery of the murky relationship between Trump and Putin. What makes the American president so sure that the Russian autocrat is winning? And why does Putin always find the right words to make him change his mind, even if temporarily? An old thesis, which has never been proven, says that the Kremlin leader has evidence of suspicions of sexual abuse by Trump and is ‘blackmailing’ him.
Another suggests the “money-chasing” theory and recalls that since 2000, private Russian funds have been entering the assets and businesses of the “Trump” group. Then there is the psychological explanation, Trump adores and perhaps envies strong leaders, authoritarian leaders, predators without borders. In February 2022, when Putin invaded Ukraine, Trump called him “genius”. But perhaps a literary explanation should be added. Putin knows how to wait, remains faithful to Kutuzov’s words in “War and Peace”, which considered “time and patience” as the best weapons of war. Trump, not known for patience, is hyperactive, wants everything immediately. But in doing so, he does not understand that among the few cards in Putin’s hand, he himself is one of them. (Corriere Della Sera)