An ‘extreme pressure’ strategy on part of the Trump administration to coerce Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine is certain to meet with resistance. The amiable Anchorage meeting between the two leaders on August 15 has not restrained Russian military from creating new facts on the ground.
Donald Trump has not so far addressed the core issues for Russia—a European security architecture, and demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine. Putin, sensing a long haul ahead, disclosed that Russia may soon unveil new weapons, and flagged “the modernity of our nuclear deterrence forces exceeding that of any other nuclear-armed nation”.
However, Moscow scrupulously avoids sparring with Trump even as it tiptoes into a new phase of his presidency—‘Trump Unbound’—as he looks to cement the end of hostilities in Gaza, and his attention turns back to Russia. If there is one lesson Trump deduces from his recent ‘victory’ in West Asia, it must be that pressure and arm-twisting can work. The US assistance for Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities and potential delivery of Tomahawk missiles suggest Trump is getting tougher with Putin.
On Sunday, the Financial Times reported that Washington “has for months been helping Ukraine mount long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities, in… a coordinated effort to weaken Vladimir Putin’s economy and force him to the negotiating table”.
The report said, “American intelligence shared with Kyiv has enabled strikes on important Russian energy assets including oil refineries far beyond the frontline… The previously unreported support has intensified since midsummer.” It added that Washington was closely involved in all stages of planning with Ukraine, selecting targets for long-range strikes, providing intelligence on the sites’ vulnerabilities, and helping Kyiv “shape route planning, altitude, timing and mission decisions, enabling Ukraine’s long-range, one-way attack drones to evade Russian air defences”.
According to an earlier FT report in July, Trump pointedly asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a phone conversation whether Ukraine could strike Moscow if Washington provided long-range weapons. Of course, the White House later explained guardedly that Trump was “merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing”.
Nonetheless, ignoring Moscow’s red lines, an unprecedented direct US participation in Ukraine’s military strikes on Russian territory is well under way—something Joe Biden avoided. On Saturday, the long-range drones of Ukraine’s elite Alpha unit successfully hit the Bashneft-UNPZ oil refinery in Ufa, some 1,400 km inside Russia, one of the largest and most modern oil refineries that can produce a wide range of petroleum products that meet the army’s requirements. This is the third such deep strike in a month.
A Guardian report noted, “Such strikes demonstrate that there are no safe places in the deep rear of the Russian Federation.” Moscow knew what was going on, but Putin’s policy has been not to make an issue of it—although Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows retaliation against any direct attack on Russian territory.
An emboldened Trump has now begun talking about the US transferring to Ukraine Tomahawk cruise missiles (range: 2,500 km). Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that such a development would lead to “a significant change in the situation”. But he reaffirmed Moscow’s mantra that Tomahawks, by themselves, wouldn’t prevent Russia from achieving its goals in Ukraine.
Putin prefers to remain engaged with Trump, still hoping to normalise the bilateral relationship. But the signs are that opinion is hardening in the Kremlin. There is some evidence that Putin, under pressure himself, is inclined to giving the Russian armed forces a freer hand in the operations.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and deputy chairman of its Security Council, wrote on a Telegram channel, “The delivery of these [Tomahawk] missiles [to Ukraine] could end badly for everyone. And most of all, for Trump himself.” In an exceptionally harsh tone, Medvedev went on to explain, “It’s been said a hundred times, in a manner understandable even to the star-spangled man, that it’s impossible to distinguish a nuclear Tomahawk missile from a conventional one in flight. It won’t be… Kyiv that launches them, but the US. Read: Trump.”
The point is, the Tomahawk is a boutique weapon that was not developed originally as a ground-fired missile; its performance also depends on its offline calibration in a lab, real-time calibration using onboard sensors during flight, or even dynamic self-calibration techniques.
Meanwhile, an extraordinary event took place on October 7, Putin’s birthday, as he, accompanied by the defence ministry and general staff top brass and the commanders deployed in Ukraine, visited the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg, whose sepulchre contains the tombs of Russian emperors Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.
Putin later told his favourite journalist Pavel Zarubin: “I invited them to the Peter and Paul Cathedral… Why? Because it was Peter I who laid the essential foundations of the contemporary Russian state… our military… is, in fact, defending what Peter I created.” Then, he added meaningfully, “Russia’s fate has evolved differently throughout history—it has grown larger or became smaller in size at different times. Under Catherine II… Russia made the greatest acquisitions of territory, as you know.” Putin’s words indeed carried a certain message of assurance to the Russian people—it was Catherine the Great who founded Odessa, the jewel in her crown.
That said, Putin hasn’t given up hope that Trump, a nimble tactician, is also capable of alternating between military support for Kyiv to stall an imminent Ukrainian collapse while pushing Kyiv to make significant concessions at the negotiating table—so as to offer Moscow a constructive, respectful relationship with the West after the war. Zelenskyy is meeting Trump on Friday. Trump also intends to speak with Putin.
It is entirely conceivable that Trump views the supply of Tomahawks to Ukraine as part of his broader negotiating tactics serving diplomatic rather than military goals. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin’s alter ego, thinks so. Putin himself, in turn, has stated that the use of Tomahawk missiles necessitating direct involvement of US military personnel “would mark a fundamentally new stage of escalation, including in relations between Russia and the US”. The world is on the brink again.
M K Bhadrakumar | Former diplomat
(Views are personal)
