IS TRUMP TURNING ON PUTIN?

For a man inclined to hyperbole, Donald Trump's recent 'criticism' of Vladimir Putin has been rather restrained. Following a phone call between the US and Russian presidents on 3 July, Trump said that he was 'not happy' with Putin. He admitted: 'I'm very disappointed. I'm just saying I don't think he's [Putin] ready to stop [the war].'

When you compare these remarks to what Trump has said about Joe Biden ('the worst presidential candidate in the history of politics'), or pay attention the lack of superlatives that usually pepper his speech, such criticism sounds measured. Yet the media has fixed much attention on Trump's change of tone on Putin and Russia.

Last November I wrote that 'it is conceivable Trump ends up giving more, not less, military aid to Ukraine than the Joe Biden administration has.' For the first half of 2025 such an argument has felt silly and not a little naive about Trump. No one could have foreseen the bust up in the Oval Office at the end of February, of course, but everything in the early weeks of Trump's second presidency pointed away from the possibility of him making a volte face on Putin and Russia. There were signs of impatience and frustration from Trump in April, but it has taken some time for policy to begin to catch up.

Now, following the 3 July phone call, we heard Trump saying: 'I didn't make any progress with him [Putin] at all... It just seems like he wants to go all the way and just keep killing people.' The Kremlin's readout of the phone call described it as 'frank and constructive', the diplomatese easily understood. Could it be that I was right all along and the US will give stauncher military backing to Ukraine after all? All sorts of things are possible, but I fear I was wrong – or, at least, that it is too soon to conclude that I was right – for a couple of reasons.

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