Key Points and Summary – President Trump’s new hardline strategy—offering advanced weapons to Ukraine while threatening Russia with a 50-day ultimatum for a peace deal—has been met with cautious optimism from some quarters and continued defiance from Moscow.
-While former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed the move as a “turning point,” the Kremlin has publicly stated it remains committed to achieving its war aims.
-Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has responded by proposing new peace talks. The starkly different reactions highlight the deep impasse, with the West now betting that the credible threat of force is the only language Vladimir Putin understands.
Putin Might Have a New Ukraine Problem…
A week ago, the White House announced a shift in policy towards Russia and Ukraine.
The Trump Administration is still pushing for an end to the war, but it has now proposed a different way of doing so: By making new weapons available to Ukraine, while also threatening new secondary tariffs on countries that trade with Russia, in the event Russia doesn’t agree to a ceasefire within 50 days.
This followed Trump vowing to end the war on his first day in office and then, later, the Pentagon briefly announcing a pause in new deliveries of weapons to Ukraine.
The idea is to hit Russia where it hurts, make them feel the pain, and force them to the negotiating table. However, more than three years of sanctions, from all directions, have largely failed to deter Russia’s goals so far in the war.
Indeed, the Russians so far have not indicated that the threats coming from Trump will deter their war aims.
According to the Associated Press, Russia is “open to peace with Ukraine, but achieving its goals remains a priority,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated this week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “has repeatedly spoken of his desire to bring the Ukrainian settlement to a peaceful conclusion as soon as possible. This is a long process, it requires effort, and it is not easy,” Peskov said over the weekend on Russian state TV, as reported by the AP.
“The main thing for us is to achieve our goals,” the spokesman added. “Our goals are clear.”
Russia’s Goals for the War
As Russia made clear in the last round of peace talks that took place in Istanbul in early June, it is demanding that Ukraine give up territory, that the international community recognize that territory as Russia’s, that Ukraine’s military after the war be diminished, and that Ukraine remain neutral and not join NATO.
All of those demands are nonstarters for Ukraine.
The View From Ukraine
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has proposed peace talks, as part of what the New York Times describes as “faint signs of life… in the effort to halt Ukraine war.”
“The Russian side must stop hiding from decisions,” the Ukrainian leader said in a video message, as reported by the Times. He offered to meet as soon as this week, once again in Istanbul.
What would be discussed in the talks?
“Mr. Zelensky proposed talks on a cease-fire, prisoner exchanges, and the return of Ukrainian children deported to Russia during the war. He reiterated an offer for a direct meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, first floated in May,” The Times said of the possibility of talks.
Russia responded to the proposal.
“President Putin has repeatedly spoken of his desire to bring the Ukrainian settlement to a peaceful conclusion as soon as possible,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov said, per the newspaper. “This is a long process, it requires effort, and it is not easy.”
A Secretary of State Speaks
A former U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, made some comments this week about Trump’s shift on Russia-Ukraine talks.
“This last week was a turning point,” Rice said at an Aspen Institute forum this week, per The Hill.
“I think the best news that we could possibly give to the Ukrainian people is that the U.S. and Europe have finally aligned around the idea that Vladimir Putin will not be stopped with words,” Rice added. “He will only be stopped if he believes that he can go no further, he can win no further.”
The secretary of state in President George W. Bush’s second term, Rice got her start as an expert on the Soviet Union, first in academia and later government. Since 2020, she has served as the director of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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Swamplaw Yankee
July 22, 2025 at 4:23 am
The Goals of the dictator Putin for his captives seems clear + extensive. The Goals of the MAGA POTUS Trump remarkably limited and undefined. Why so?
The above op-ed deflects the Yankee reader away from clarity of American goal making.
First: The MAGA POTUS refuses to be the needed leader for the WEST. The MAGA POTUS refuses to clearly demand that the dictator Putin and his orc oligarchs immediately return all illegally seized Ukrainian land since 2014.
Second: The MAGA POTUS refuses to openly demand that Putin’s oligarchs immediately pre-pay $10,000,000 in US gold bullion as compensation and reparation to each and every mass abducted human trafficked Ukrainian. That is pre-pay this gold bullion as Putin extracts Ukrainian children from their 11 years of muscovite table top dancing.
Just these 2 very limited goals are absent from the statements of the MAGA POTUS. The bull from the White House that the negotiation is something that the Dictator Putin must agree to, has a say in, is a complete deflection. Ukraine does not need a unilateral covert Yankee Negotiation team. The MAGA POTUS has abdicated his leadership, that is Trump has no legitimacy to negotiate for the interests of the WEST. Period.
The analogy is ancient Han China that fought a Japan invasion starting in 1937. From 1943 – 1950 the USA played the same scam on the population of China. The current MAGA POTUS seems to be playing today’s Dean Acheson, the USA Secretary of State who claimed that Marx erred and that the “USA could enjoy peace in our time” as he demanded the huge numbers of Han people of China appease + submit to the tiny cabal of Stalin’s Communists.
MAGA Trump just can not reveal the 2014 marxist POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal unilateral sell out and greenlighting of the free, no-cost giveaway of the geopolitical advantage of the WEST’s control of Ukrainian Crimea’s soil and families and Black/Azov sea zones to the prime vile cold war enemy: Putin. Trump not only can not reveal this USA action, Trump refuses to make this betrayal gig of marxist Obama a USA priority to correct!
Trump clearly is not the 2025 leader of the WEST and clearly has abdicated that vital role. Marxist Obama stuck his unilateral betrayal of the WEST up the — of Trump, demands to make comedy TV shows, as Trump unfolds on stage his tragic inability to comprehend this world class US betrayal and make up for Obama’s criminality.
The USA of 2025 is not fit to negotiate for the WEST!
Provide the ammo, provide the military hardware and stop making Ukrainians appease to + re-submit to the thousand year child sex traders of Moscow. Ukrainian fathers of 1616 had to fight on the Black Sea, in muslim sex trade forts and on the frontiers of Moscow to stop the ethnic russian genetic need to abuse Ukrainian children.
America of 2025 just has zero will and/or moral fibre/character to stop the hundreds of thousands of “normal” orc russian women facilitating, since 2014, the mass abduction of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. Prove otherwise with the return of each and every abducted Ukrainian in 21 days. That is the moral test of America. -30-
Swamplaw Yankee
July 22, 2025 at 5:34 am
The above seems to glide over the need of the 2025 Yankee to force an ancient nation, Ukraine, to appease to + re-submit to the millennia of butchery of ethnic peasant russians. The same scam was used by the WW2 Yankee to force the ancient huge nation of Han people composing China to submit + give up their armed struggle against the same butchery from Communist Stalin.
Americans who understood the menace of fascist dictator Stalin were pushed aside, exiled so that pro-communist Yankees could alter + control US policy against the Han people of China.
At every step for years, the USA used the same scam as they use on Ukrainians today. Deny the Chinese ammo, free from defeated Germany or defeated Japan. Deny the Chinese military hardware, free from defeated Germany or free from defeated Japan. Deny the Chinese any, even minimal, military advice, advisers and aid while pouring uncontrolled free military aid + cash into greece, italy and france to prevent communist Stalin from taking over. Demand that billions of illiterate Han peasants in China instantly reform, stop ancient corruption, become democratic yesterday while zero USA demands were made of europe, such as greece, etc to be corruption free, etc.
Dean Acheson + his cabal of fellow travellers danced pro-commie collusions with the FDR incapables, as concrete evidence of Ruskie/Soviet espionage was gilded over.
On March 11, 1945, many months before the first atomic bomb was used, 1, 700 of top secret files and highly confidential War + Navy, departments, the OSS, the OWI and the State Department, all stolen, were found in a obscure, pro-ruskie magazine, called Amerasia. Pro-Ruskie-Stalin types were arrested, but the defence and US prosecution covered up evidence so as to evade jail time.
There was no US MSM at all, until 1950 when McCarthy made this name re-appear.
Ad rem: the Ukraine faces this same Yankee lethargy in 2025. The USA is very unconscious of the vile russian child abusers of 1616 or 2014-25. The 2014 POTUS Obama unilaterally betrays the WEST by selling out Ukrainian soil of Crimea to muscovite child abductor/abusers! The 2025 MAGA POTUS refuses to make amends to the WEST. The MAGA POTUS in 2025 plays the old 1945 era scam of no ammo and no hardware to free people with the evil, vile purpose of enriching the same ethnic peasant russian.
The USA MSM has erased the Dean Acheson failures of the 40’s and pretends in 2025 that the USA is fit to magically negotiate to return what the USA stole from the WEST: Ukrainian soil and Ukrainian children. Trump can stop being a world-class loser + demand from Putin that every “Lolita” is compensated+ returned in 7 days. -30-