Surprise sanctions look to have ended Trump and Putin’s Groundhog Day | US foreign policy

For once, a phone call with Vladimir Putin did not lead to a thaw.

By imposing sanctions on Russia this week, Donald Trump broke from his usual pattern of easing tensions with the Kremlin after conversations with the Russian leader, when threats of pressure often give way to talk of renewed dialogue.

At first, events seemed to follow a familiar script.

As Washington flirted with the idea of supplying Ukraine with powerful Tomahawk missiles, Putin and Trump spoke by phone last week. Soon after, both sides announced plans for a US–Russia summit in Budapest and Tomahawks were left off the table.

A similar sequence unfolded last August, when Trump was threatening new sanctions and Putin met the US president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff. The meeting produced plans for a summit in Alaska – and Trump’s threats were swiftly put back in the freezer.

Putin’s well-timed calls to Trump became so obviously calculated that even in Moscow they were met with amusement.

“Putin, who appears to be running a kind of personal tactical game with Trump, has a knack, it must be said, for picking just the right moments to undercut our opponents’ efforts and inject new momentum into the talks,” wrote Fyodor Lukyanov, a foreign policy analyst close to the Kremlin, in a piece for the popular newspaper Argumenty i Fakty last Thursday.

“We can see that the ‘target’ is responding to those signals … We are stuck in a loop,” he added.

But Groundhog Day seems to be over.

Already frustrated by the fruitless Alaska meeting, where Putin reportedly subjected him to a history lecture, Trump lost patience this week after talks between his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, made clear that Moscow saw no room for compromise on its stance in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Trump vented his frustration with the Russian president, announcing that the Budapest summit was shelved.

“Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere,” Trump told reporters in the White House.

Soon after, his administration announced surprise sanctions on two of Russia’s biggest oil producers and about three dozen of their subsidiaries, measures that could severely undermine Moscow’s crucial energy revenues.

The swiftness of the sanctions appeared to catch Moscow off guard, two sources with knowledge said, and even surprised some of the president’s closest advisers, according to CNN.

“The idea of oil sanctions had been circulating for a while, but it still came as an unpleasant surprise to Moscow,” said a former high-ranking Russian official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Putin conceded the sanctions could cost Russia’s economy, telling reporters on Thursday that “some losses are expected”.

But as in earlier waves of western sanctions, there was little sign the new measures would dissuade the Kremlin from pursuing the war, according to analysts and insiders.

The Russian president has long indicated that he is willing to let ordinary Russians bear the economic pain in order to continue a war that he sees as a defining element in his legacy.

“Economic hardship will not force him to end the war. He believes that this is the price we have to pay,” said the former Russian official.

“Pressuring Putin is pointless. Even if he were inclined to make concessions, he couldn’t appear to do so under pressure. He simply wouldn’t allow it,” the source added.

At the heart of Trump’s current misalignment with Moscow is his demand for an immediate ceasefire that would serve as the basis for peace talks.

Trump has also urged both sides to freeze the current front lines – a proposal supported by Ukraine and its European allies.

Putin, however, has firmly ruled out halting the fighting until a comprehensive agreement is reached that addresses what the Kremlin calls the “root causes” of the conflict.

Those “root causes”, according to Moscow, mean sweeping demands that would erode Ukraine’s sovereignty, including full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, limits on Ukraine’s armed forces, and a Russian say in its domestic affairs.

“For Moscow, stopping the war now would mean giving up its main leverage over Trump,” said Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

“The Kremlin thinks they are winning the war and that Ukraine is losing, slowly but steadily. Putin really believes Ukraine could crumble some time next year,” said Gabuev.

“To stop now without achieving his goals would only make restarting the war later more difficult.”

Gabuev said Russia was likely to be keen to see how Ukraine – struggling to withstand relentless aerial bombardments and shortages of manpower at the front – would cope through the winter before taking its next diplomatic step.

In recent months, Putin has increasingly suggested that time is on his side.

Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi earlier this month, Putin struck a tone of confidence, insisting that Ukraine’s forces were faltering.

Citing figures that could not be independently verified, he claimed Kyiv had lost 11,000 troops in a single month and was struggling to replenish its ranks.

For the moment, the Kremlin seemed willing to tolerate a mild deterioration in relations with Washington, said Tatiana Stanovaya, an independent Russian political analyst, betting that Trump’s volatile nature could lead him to change his mind.

“Putin is counting on the Americans to, as he puts it, ‘come to their senses’,” Stanovaya said.

“He believes that as Ukraine’s situation deteriorates, Washington will eventually conclude that the only solution is to talk to Russia about the root causes of the conflict – if not now, then in six months.”