Why the relationship between Trump and Putin broke down in a few months

Was the relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin derail? A popular Russian newspaper believes it. He resorted to trains to illustrate the current state of relations between the United States and Russia.

“A frontal collision seems inevitable,” Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid recently declared.

“The Trump locomotive and the Putin locomotive advance at full speed.”

“And none is about to back down or stop.”

To describe the “Putin locomotive”, the newspaper says that he advances to full machine with the so -called “special military operation”: the Russian war in Ukraine. The Kremlin leader has not shown any intention to end hostilities or declare a long -term fire.

Meanwhile, the “Trump locomotive” has intensified its efforts to press Moscow to put an end to fighting: announcing deadlines, ultimatums, threats of additional sanctions against Russia and strong tariffs on commercial partners of Russia, such as India and China.

To all this we must add the two US nuclear submarines that, according to President Trump, has repositioned closer to Russia.

When you go from talking about locomotives to talk about nuclear submarines, you have to know that the thing is serious.

But does that mean that the White House is really on the way to collide with the Kremlin for Ukraine?

Or is it the visit to Moscow of the special envoy of Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, this week, a sign that, despite all the positions, an agreement between Russia and the United States is still possible to end the fighting?

In the first weeks of Trump's second presidency, Moscow and Washington seemed to be well aimed at reactivating their bilateral relations.

There was no trace of a frontal clash. At all. At times, it seemed that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were in the same car, in the same direction. In February, the United States put on the side of Russia in the United Nations, opposing a resolution written by Europe that condemned Russian “aggression” in Ukraine.

In a phone call that month, both presidents talked about visiting their respective countries. It seemed that a Putin-Trump summit could be held at any time.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration exerted pressure on kyiv, not on Moscow, and was looking for fights with traditional United States allies, such as Canada and Denmark. In speeches and television interviews, American officials strongly criticized NATO, the European leaders.

All this was music for the ears of the Kremlin.

“The United States now has more in common with Russia than Washington with Brussels or with kyiv,” Konstanntin Blokhin's political scientist, from the Safety Studies Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the newspaper.

The following month, the same newspaper was boasted:

“Trumpists are revolutionaries. They are destroyers of the system. In this they can only be supported. The unity of the West no longer exists. Geopolitically is no longer an alliance. Trumpism has destroyed transatlantic consensus with certainty and quickly.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, had become a usual visitor to Russia. He made four trips in just over two months, spending hours talking with Vladimir Putin. After a meeting, the Kremlin leader gave him a portrait of Donald Trump to take him to the White House.

It was said that President Trump was “clearly moved” by the gesture.

But Trump was looking for more than a simple picture of Moscow. I wanted Putin to sign the unconditional and integral fire in Ukraine.

Confident that Russia maintains the initiative on the battlefield, Vladimir Putin has been reluctant to stop fighting, despite stating that Moscow is committed to a diplomatic solution.

Therefore, Donald Trump is increasingly frustrated with the Kremlin.

In recent weeks, he condemned the incessant Russian attacks against Ukrainian cities as “disgusting” and “shameful” and accused President Putin of saying “many stupidities” about Ukraine.

Last month, Donald Trump announced a 50 -day ultimatum to Putin to end the war, threatening with sanctions and tariffs. Subsequently, he reduced it to ten days. The deadline expires at the end of this week. So far, there are no indications that Vladimir Putin yields to Washington's pressure.

On the other hand, how much pressure does Vladimir Putin really feel?

“As Donald Trump has changed so many deadlines and has manipulated them in one way or another, I don't think Putin takes it seriously,” says Nina Khrushcheva, professor of international affairs at The New School, a university in New York City.

“Putin will fight everything he can, unless Ukraine says: 'We are tired, we are willing to accept their conditions.' I think Putin sits in the Kremlin and thinks that he is fulfilling the dreams of the Russian tsars, and after the general secretaries such as Iosif Stalin, by demonstrating to the West that Russia should not disrespect.”

Judging by the panorama that I have painted so far, a frontal shock between the Putin and Trump locomotives might inevitable.

Donald Trump is considered a great negotiator and, from what it seems, he has not resigned to try to close an agreement with Vladimir Putin.

Steve Witkoff will return to Russia this week to meet with Kremlin leader. We do not know what type of offer could bring. But some commentators in Moscow predict that there will be more incentives than punishments. It did not go unnoticed that on Sunday, President Trump declared that Russia “seems to be quite good avoiding sanctions.”

On Monday, Ivan Loshkarev, associate professor of political theory at the Mgimo University of Moscow, told Izvestia that, to facilitate dialogue, Witkoff could present “advantageous offers of cooperation (to Russia) that they could consider after an agreement on Ukraine.”

Could that be enough to persuade the Kremlin to make peace after three and a half years of war?

After all, until now in Ukraine Vladimir Putin has not yielded in its maximalist demands on the territory, the neutrality of Ukraine and the future size of the Ukrainian army.

Donald Trump wants an agreement. Vladimir Putin, a victory.

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