Yours truly must confess to not writing regularly of late about the Ukraine war because there’s been a dearth of big new developments. The pattern for some time has been of of Ukraine and the European Commission, and most NATO members trying what are repeats of failed/rejected strategies vis-a-vis Russia to keep the conflict going while pretending that they are consistent with a peace deal. So we see, for instance, everything from a pointless 19th European sanctions package to endless variants of peacekeeping and reassurance forces to continued scheming about how to seize frozen Russian assets (fiercely resisted by Euroclear) to demands that the US back long-distance missile strikes into Russia and keep supplying weapons despite not being able to produce remotely enough for Ukraine, let alone its many other demands.
Some high-profile members of the Ukraine-skeptic commentary community are giving thumb’s up to Trump apparently having scored a win against the Ukraine hawks and Europeans. As we’ll explain, as much as Trump might indeed have successfully slipped a noose, this gambit in no way solves Trump’s much bigger problem, that he will still be The President Who Lost Ukraine. And his own messaging will be partly to blame.
Admittedly, Trump has come up with a solid basis for rejecting the Senator Linsey Graham demand, loudly cheered by the pro-war faction in the EU, for “bone-crunching” US secondary sanctions against buyers of Russian energy like China, India, and if one is being consistent, Turkiye and Europe, among others. Trump was all in for imposing an additional 25% tariffs against India over the 25% already imposed until they backfired. Even the not-well-reported fact that the additional 25% tariffs were limited in the number of included products still had an impact on India, with the domestic press highlighting the damage and the rupee falling to an all-time low against the greenback. And that’s before getting to the fury of the betrayal after the Biden Administration had pressed India to buy Russian oil to keep market prices from rising and Trump had acted as if he were a friend of India.
But as we have pointed out, Trump looked to be cornered by Graham, who said he has over 80 votes for sanctions. Whether the House would fall in line and also provide enough votes to override a veto (were Trump to go that route) is an open question. But 80 votes is also enough to impeach Trump if the House were to impeach Trump and send the motion to the Senate for trial.
Recall that Trump first gave Putin a 50 day deadline to agree to a ceasefire or be subjected to the sanctions.1 Russia did not moderate its prosecution of the war. Trump moved the deadline up to 10 to 12 days, which looked likely to confirm US impotence. Trump then in an effort to try to do….who knows what,2 but ultimately buy himself more room for maneuver. We did not write up the summit because we deemed the coverage at the time to be overheated, as if Putin briefly demonstrating on national television that he did not have hooves and horns would make a difference. We probably should have thrown down a marker, that this meeting would do absolutely nothing to solve the problem that there was no bargaining overlap between Russia’s relentlessly-stated position and what the Collective West is prepared to accept.
Even though Alaska session did produce one outcome, that Trump accepted the Russian rejection of a ceasefire, that inching towards the Russian view makes no practical difference in terms of progress towards a peaceful resolution. Zelensky is not backing down. The Europeans tried breathing new life into their corpse of mustering forces and finding a pretext to get them installed in Ukraine, under the pretense of peacekeeping.
And critically, Trump kept up belligerent noises after the summit. From Newsweek:
Trump has since proceeded to host Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage on August 15. After a three-hour meeting, though, no new sanctions were announced and the Russian president has not formally agreed to a ceasefire.
But Russia’s continuing barrage of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles exemplified the lack of momentum of U.S. peace efforts and the original 50-day deadline has expired without the breakthrough Trump had hoped for…
A White House official referred Newsweek on Tuesday to comments Trump had made on August 25 that Russia could face substantial consequences, stressing that the war needs to end.
“It will be an economic war that will be bad for Russia, and he doesn’t want that. As he stated, he will know in the coming weeks what he is going to do,” the White House said, noting Trump’s previous comments that this could consist of “massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both.”
And from BBC a week ago:
Donald Trump has threatened tougher sanctions against Russia after its heaviest aerial bombardment on Ukraine since the war began…
Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that no sanctions would ever be able to force Russia to “change the consistent position that our president has repeatedly spoken about”….
Speaking to reporters after the bombardment, the US president said he was “not happy with the whole situation.”
Trump has previously threatened harsher measures against Russia, but not taken any action when Putin ignored his deadlines and threats of sanctions.
Asked on on Sunday if he was prepared to move to the “second phase” of punishing Moscow, Trump replied: “Yeah, I am,” though gave no details.
The threat follows remarks from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said Washington was prepared to escalate economic pressure but needed stronger European backing.
In an interview with NBC, Bessent said that, if EU nations increased sanctions and secondary tariffs on countries which buy Russian oil, “the Russian economy will be in total collapse, and that will bring President Putin to the table”.
He added: “We are in a race now between how long can the Ukrainian military hold up, versus how long can the Russian economy hold up.”
With that background, let’s look at the latest development, that Trump appears to have found a way out of the pressure to impose secondary sanctions on more countries that buy energy from Russia by saying NATO members need to join, otherwise they won’t be effective:
It is surprising that some commentators do not get that the whole point of this gambit is that NATO members can’t go along without destroying their economies, and hence would not, getting Trump off the hook:
Trump wants the EU to stop buying Russian oil, pointing at Turkey as well.
He seems to ignore that EU imports of oil have been slashed since March 2023 and even the remaining drizzle has diminished since.
And Turkey is an American ally in NATO, but not in the EU. pic.twitter.com/vxu6EZURlc
— René Duba (@ReneDuba) September 15, 2025
Now let’s turn to commentary, first from Simplicius in Trump Finally Outwits Europe and the Neocons on Ukraine?:
Trump appears to have fairly cunningly outplayed Europe and put the ball into their court by challenging Europeans to put their money where their mouth is…
Translation: “I will put sanctions on Russia as soon as you guys do something I know is impossible to do.”
Trump has backed Europe into a zugzwang by conditioning his actions on Europe choosing between two equally fatal positions: if Europe completely cuts its “indirect” purchase of Russian “shadow” oil, as well as tariffs China to hell, it will crash Europe’s already crumbling economy. If Europe refuses to do this, then Trump will continue the status quo of the absolute bare minimum in supporting Ukraine while essentially giving Russia carte blanche to finish Ukraine off—which is equally as politically disastrous to Europe as the first option.
With this move, Trump has managed—for now at least—to extricate himself from the deadlock by out-maneuvering critics and neocons alike who are hereby prevented from pressing Trump on “enabling Russia”. Trump will now have a ready, plausible excuse for them: “Why should we make the effort of such sanctions when Europe refuses to meet us half way? It’s their war, after all.”
Simplicius takes pains to signal that this maneuver might only provide temporary relief and adds:
However, the neocon deep state immediately sprang into action. Speaker Mike Johnson said that sanctions on Russia are “far overdue” and that there is a “big appetite for that in Congress”.
Ever-devious Lindsey Graham went a step farther in trying to force a sanctions package by kitchensinking it into a federal funding bill:
Everywhere you turn the global deep state clerisy is trying their damndest to raise the temperature on the conflict in portrayal of Russia as some threat from beyond looming over all of civilization.
If you think this move indicates an effort by Trump to extricate himself from Project Ukraine, as opposed to extricate itself from immediate and obvious (as opposed to longer-term) self-sabotage, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. For instance, see RT on September 13, US to press G7 on seizing frozen Russian assets – Bloomberg:
The US will press its G7 allies to establish a legal framework for seizing frozen Russian state assets and channeling them to Ukraine, Bloomberg has reported, citing sources.
Western nations froze an estimated $300 billion in Russian assets following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, some €200 billion of which are held by Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear. The funds have generated billions in interest, and the West has been exploring ways to use the revenue to finance Ukraine. While refraining from outright seizure, the G7 last year backed a plan to provide Kiev with $50 billion in loans to be repaid using the profits. The EU pledged $21 billion.
According to a proposal seen by the outlet, Washington will urge the G7 to back measures enabling the outright confiscation of the frozen reserves for transfer to Kiev. Separately, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that senior US officials have discussed the idea with their European counterparts.
So Trump is not really moving away from the war, as opposed to avoiding the most stoopid measures to try to advance it. The big problem for him is he is firmly attached to the Ukraine tar baby. The war will be settled on the battlefield, in 18 months at the outside. The direction of travel will be too obvious to cover up for the midterms. For anyone looking at the conflict at a remove, Biden lavishing money on that “bring Russia down” misadventure and stripping the US and its allies bare of weapons stocks did keep Ukraine fighting and limited territorial losses, which is what the press and most observers focused on. And the press was only haltingly starting to become candid about Ukraine’s increasingly desperate condition in the second half of 2024.
By contrast, war-watchers are now providing many indicators of Ukraine’s military collapse becoming more and more imminent, such as extremely thin manning on the front lines and Ukraine’s one solace, its supposed drone prowess, now being outmatched by Russia. John Helmer has pointed out that Russia also has resumed its campaign against Ukraine’s grid, which if the General Staff were given its head, could bring Ukraine to its knees in short order.
And even though correlation is not causation, Ukraine’s defenses will start undeniably coming apart when Trump did not continue the Biden policy of pumping Ukraine full of arms and weapons. Again, not that that would have changed the outcome (charitably assuming the US had the means) but many believe so and more importantly, have been getting the press to promote that notion. And Trump, with his intense need to appear to be the driver of events, kept taking rather than refusing meetings with Zelensky, European leaders, and NATO officials. So he has very much identified himself with the war via his deluded belief that he could settle it, which has resulted in him discussing it frequently and at length, again attaching himself to the conflict.
Many observers, particularly Douglas Macgregor and the Duran duo, have said that Trump needed to repudiate the Ukraine war when he took office or he would own it. And a big reason he does is not simply persistent neocon messaging and effective stoking over time of hatred for Putin and Russia generally. It is that Trump himself has been complicit in the messaging that Ukraine could win. He has repeatedly depicted Russia as suffering unsustainable losses to its military and economy. A few of many examples:
CNBC, August 25: Russia’s economy ‘stinks,’ Trump says, and lower oil prices will stop its war machine
Times of India, August 27: ‘Going to be very bad for Russia…’: Donald Trump warns of ‘economic war’ if Putin doesn’t agree to Ukraine talks; says ‘very serious what I have in mind’
RFE/RL January 25: Trump Says Putin ‘Destroying’ Russia By Failing To Seek Ukraine Peace Deal
Newsweek February 15: Fact Check: Trump Says Russia Has Lost 1.5 Million Troops In Ukraine War
New York Post, August 1: Trump reveals ‘almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died’ in July during Ukraine war
So image-and-legacy-obsessed Trump will indeed rack up a big black mark thanks to failing repudiate the Ukraine war when he took office. But his narcissism runs so deep and he has surrounded himself with so many sycophants that he will likely be able to convince himself otherwise.
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1 Some commentators were promoting the incredible argument that Trump picked that drop dead date so he could attend the big Chinese victory over Japan event if Russia agreed. That would be a fast track to assassination and Trump surely understands that. Depending on whether you counted the day Trump made the demand as part of the 50 days, they expired either on Labor Day or September 2, the first day both houses of Congress were back in session after their summer holiday. September 2 does not seem ideal from a spin-management perspective.
2 Pre-summit messaging was all over the map, with Trump going from presenting himself as intending to strong-arm Putin to sounding almost meek, that he wanted to listen.
