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The White House, for two months, has warmly embraced the Kremlin. But President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has given little in return, despite his professed willingness to cooperate. His forces have carried on bombarding Ukraine, both on the front and deep into the Ukrainian heartland. He has barely budged in peace negotiations, freighting an agreement to a unconditional 30-day cease-fire with myriad conditions. His subordinates have dragged out talks, voicing requirements for a limited Black Sea truce in recent days.
President Trump took notice. The U.S. president told NBC News this weekend that he was “very angry” about the comments and threatened to impose tariffs on any country buying Russian oil, a measure that could dent Moscow’s most crucial source of income for the war.
The result is a question of increasing relevance for the most-Russia friendly American administration in decades: Is Washington prepared to pile pressure on Mr. Putin, whose authoritarian power, disregard for term limits and crusade against liberals have long appealed to Mr. Trump?
On the battlefield, there is no sign Mr. Putin intends to back off. Russian drones are bombarding Ukrainian cities with intense frequency and ferocity. In recent weeks, the attacks have taken on a deadly pattern as Russia concentrates a blizzard of drones, many armed with powerful thermobaric warheads, on different population centers.
President Trump also threatened Mr. Zelensky over the weekend, accusing the Ukrainian leader of trying to back out of the deal to give the U.S. mineral rights as compensation for American aid. “He’s trying to back out of the rare earth deal and if he does that he’s got some problems, big, big problems,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday on Air Force One.
Mr. Putin has long questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty, and the U.S. government said his invasion of Ukraine in 2022 aimed to topple Mr. Zelensky’s government. Mr. Putin seemed to reiterate that goal on Friday, calling for a “temporary international administration” to be installed.
The geography and brutality of Russian strikes, not just occasionally, but every day and night, show that Putin couldn’t care less about diplomacy. For several weeks now, there has been a U.S. proposal for an unconditional cease-fire. And almost every day, in response to this proposal, there are Russian drones, bombs, artillery shelling and ballistic strikes.
The Trump administration has so far declined to take any significant action to pressure Russia. Mr. Trump has declined to acknowledge that it was Russia that started the war, falsely declared Mr. Zelensky a “dictator,” and briefly suspended American military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after a disastrous meeting in the Oval Office.
At the same time, the White House has taken steps that benefit the Kremlin, including halting the work of several U.S. security agencies to counter Russian sabotage, disinformation and cyberwarfare, disbanded an F.B.I. team that seized the assets of Russian oligarchs and dismantling organizations that Moscow has long loathed, including the aid agency U.S.A.I.D.
The limited agreement by both Russia and Ukraine to halt attacks on energy infrastructure for 30 days, which contained no enforcement mechanism, appears to be falling apart. Both sides have already accused the other of violating the deal.
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