In late January, just two days after his second presidential inaugural, Donald Trump told Russia that if it failed to end its war in Ukraine quickly, the White House “would have no other choice” but to impose new economic sanctions. Vladimir Putin proceeded to ignore the threat, and the American president failed to follow through on his threat.
In early March, it happened again: Trump gave Putin a choice — sanctions or a ceasefire — and the Russian leader again ignored his American counterpart. Trump again failed to follow through. The same thing happened in late March. And early May. And late May.
In mid-July, the Republican decided to give Putin more time to resolve a conflict that Trump had promised to end within 24 hours of his inauguration. Nearly two weeks ago, on July 29, the American president brought new specificity to his threat, telling reporters that Putin’s regime had just 10 days to reach a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine — the neighboring country it invaded three years ago — or the United States would impose new economic penalties on Russia.
That declaration created a new deadline of Friday, Aug. 8.
Those who predicted that Trump was serious — this time would be different from all of those other times; this time Putin had gone too far and earned the American president’s contempt — were predictably wrong. NBC News reported:
Just when Ukraine and its European allies thought President Donald Trump was coming round to their view of the war, he appeared to give a huge win to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. For Kyiv, this was Trump’s deadline to Putin: stop the fighting by Friday or face tough new economic sanctions. Instead, Trump has handed Moscow a diplomatic coup by agreeing to meet Putin face-to-face in a matter of days, their first encounter since the invasion of Ukraine.
Complicating matters further, the Republican announced that he was welcoming Putin to American soil — the two are now scheduled to meet in Alaska on Friday — handing Moscow a related diplomatic coup. (Because the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of war crimes involving the abduction of Ukrainian children, the Russian dictator generally hasn’t been able to travel outside of his own country. The American president nevertheless invited him to the United States.)
Just days earlier, the official White House line was that Trump was willing to meet with the Russian leader, but only if Putin agreed to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump soon after changed the administration’s position.
But wait, there’s more. Trump not only abandoned his own sanctions deadline (again), not only invited Putin onto American soil in exchange for nothing, and not only gave an international pariah the legitimacy he craves, he also took some time at a White House event on Friday to assure the world that Putin “wants to see peace.”
Russia’s war — which has intensified during Trump’s second term — clearly proves otherwise, and Trump himself has repeatedly suggested in recent weeks that Putin most certainly does not want peace.
But the Republican vouched for the Russian leader anyway.
At the same White House event on Friday afternoon, the American president also suggested that Ukraine might have to agree to let Russia keep some of the Ukrainian territory that the Russian military took by force.
In case all of this weren’t quite enough, Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, said on Fox News over the weekend that the United States is “done with the funding of the Ukraine war business,” and around the same time, Matthew Whitaker, the administration’s unfortunate NATO ambassador, suggested on CNN that Russia would likely be rewarded with Ukrainian territory it “earned on the battlefield.”
About a month ago, after Trump teased a “major statement” about U.S. policy toward Russia, many observers thought the president might actually do something meaningful. When that didn’t happen, there were sighs of relief in Moscow. In fact, Russian officials were so concerned that the White House might actually try to punish them, that the Russian stock market soared after Trump signaled weakness again.
A month later, after Trump again backed off his threats and invited Putin to American soil, the White House’s pitiful position was greeted with cheers in Russia once more.
That’s understandable: As an analysis in The New York Times explained, the American president has given his Russian counterpart Putin’s “ideal summit,” without having to do much of anything.
Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at Kings College London, told the Times, “It has been a very good week for Putin.” There’s ample evidence to bolster the point, though I’d add that with Trump in the White House, it’s been a very good seven months for Putin, too.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
