When President Trump's envoys sat down with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin this month, the Russian leader exuded confidence. Within months, he said, Russian troops would finally capture Ukraine's entire Donbas region, and Russia was poised to pummel Ukraine's electricity grid, setting the stage for a miserable winter.
Then one of the envoys, Jared Kushner, pushed back. "With all due respect, you told us exactly that a year ago," Kushner told the Russian president. "What are the chances we come back here in another year and you are again saying the same thing? Maybe we don't lose a year?"
The exchange, described by a person familiar with the talks and by a US official, captured the quandary at the heart of Trump's more than 18 months of efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Congress this week passed a landmark sanctions bill targeting Russia's energy sector, a fresh attempt to make Russia "suffer" for its invasion and pressure Putin into making compromises. But even as that bill makes its way to Trump's desk, his administration is doubling down on a different approach: offering Russia benefits that officials hope will persuade Putin to consider ending the war.
White House weighs business deals before ceasefire
Among the new inducements, the White House is now considering signing business deals with Russia before it stops fighting in Ukraine, according to two people close to the talks. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations candidly, said deals with Russia before the war ends were possible because they would show the United States is serious about resetting the relationship.
The approach marks a shift from Trump's pledge last year that business deals with Russia would not come "until we get the war settled." It suggests his envoys for ending the war, Steve Witkoff and Kushner, are searching for new ways to entice Russia to stop fighting, now that it has become clear Ukraine will not withdraw from the part of its own territory Putin insists he must control before the war ends.
It also contrasts with the approach favoured by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, not to mention Kyiv's European allies and Ukraine itself: that only heightened economic and military pressure on Putin can compel him to compromise.
"This bill will cripple Russia's war machine and finally bring Putin to the negotiating table," Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and one of the sanctions bill's leading proponents, said on Wednesday after a bipartisan majority passed the legislation, 262 to 159.
Trump has indicated he will sign the bill, which was championed by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina until his death in July. It would allow the president to levy tariffs of up to 100% on countries buying the most Russian oil or gas, and would impose sanctions on Russian officials, businesspeople and financial institutions. Senator Darline Graham, who replaced her brother in his Senate seat, said it would "increase the president's negotiating leverage."
Carrots, not sticks, appear to be the focus
Insofar as the Trump administration is pursuing a carrot-and-stick approach with Putin, carrots seem to be the priority. The US official said the administration wanted to create more incentives for members of the Russian elite to push for peace. Completing some business deals before the war ends could help convince anti-American hawks around Putin that Trump genuinely wants a new relationship with Russia, the official added.
Balazs Jarabik, a former European Union diplomat in Kyiv who now works at the political analysis firm R.Politik, said signs pointed to the United States "considering bigger concessions toward Russia." Washington "is now signaling that some deals could move forward if Moscow first demonstrates concrete restraint," said Jarabik, who has been closely tracking the talks. "Washington had previously resisted signing such agreements before a ceasefire."
It remains unclear which deals in particular are on the table. The Kremlin's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said after Putin's meeting with Witkoff and Kushner on 5 September that "economic issues and potential major mutually beneficial Russian-American projects were discussed in some detail."
The Kremlin has been promoting business opportunities to the White House ever since Trump returned to office last year. Russian officials have floated deals covering rare earths and aluminium, joint ventures in the Arctic, and even involving US companies in selling Russian natural gas to Europe.
Trump has hailed Russia's economic potential as "tremendous," though he has previously held out business deals as a reward reserved for a Russia that makes peace. "They want to do business," he said ahead of his Alaska summit with Putin last year. "But they're not doing business until we get the war settled."
Talks resume after months of stalemate
The quiet shift appears to reflect the administration's search for new ideas to end the war after talks around a possible Ukrainian withdrawal from the rest of the Donbas region stalled. Earlier this year, Ukrainian officials proposed calling that area "Donnyland" in an effort to persuade Trump to push back harder against Russia's territorial demands.
Kushner addressed the impasse in a video appearance at a gathering of Ukraine's international supporters in Kyiv last weekend, the YES Annual Meeting. "President Putin's laid out his line of what he wants to achieve," Kushner said. "If Ukraine, you know, wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now does not want to do that."
Kushner added that the Trump administration's job "as the mediators" was to "come up with a creative solution" that "allows both parties to move forward." He said Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were firmly committed to the talks, and that "what we heard is President Putin's very committed to this as well."
Part of the audience in Kyiv reportedly burst out laughing at that point, a sign of the deep scepticism among Ukraine's allies toward the administration's evenhanded portrayal of the talks. Two days later, a jet-powered Russian drone struck a train at a border crossing through which dignitaries, including former CIA director David Petraeus, were travelling.
Negotiations to end Russia's war, now in its fifth year and having claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, largely ground to a halt earlier this year as Witkoff and Kushner turned their focus to the war with Iran. This month's trip by Witkoff and Kushner to Moscow and then Kyiv appeared to be an effort to restart the process. Ukrainian officials said trilateral peace talks between the United States, Ukraine and Russia could resume in October, with the possibility of a limited ceasefire, ending strikes on Black Sea shipping or energy infrastructure, expected to feature in those talks.
Source: The New York Times
