Trump's change of strategy in Ukraine worries Putin's men

MoscowTired of Vladimir Putin privately promising peace and then preaching war.Donald Trump has been moving from seduction to coercion with the Kremlin for days now. An erratic and timid coercion, but one he has resumed in recent hours, emboldened by the success of the mediation in Gaza. The US president wants to take things in stride and claim another peacemaker medal. That's why he has once again threatened to send Volodymyr Zelensky long-range, American-made Tomahawk missiles if the Russian leader does not agree to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.

"Would you like Tomahawks flying towards them [Russia]? I don't think so. If the war doesn't stop... maybe we will, maybe we won't," Trump warned in one of his usual, endearingly hesitant bravados. Be that as it may, this is the White House leader's most forceful threat yet about the possibility of arming Ukraine with missiles capable of being fired 2,500 kilometers away and hitting deep into Russia.

Trump's warning comes after speaking twice with Zelensky over the weekend and inviting the Ukrainian leader to Washington this Friday, according to the Financial TimesZelenskyy is confident that the US president will "use the same tools as in the Middle East" to pressure Moscow and that the prospect of Kiev having high-precision cruise missiles will push Putin to negotiate seriously.

Deterrence and threats from Moscow

The Kremlin is beginning to show signs of concern about Trump's change in strategy and is deploying classic deterrent rhetoric. After Putin stated that the delivery of Tomahawk missiles would represent "a qualitatively different stage of escalation," this Monday his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, stressed that Ukraine could not use these weapons without the help of American specialists, implying that the United States would become more deeply involved.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who has already clashed with the White House leader on several occasions online and never misses an opportunity to establish a radical profile, has once again raised the nuclear scare, asserting that "the delivery of these missiles could end badly for everyone, especially for Trump himself." The reason, in his opinion, is that it is impossible to distinguish whether a Tomahawk is carrying a nuclear warhead while it is flying.

In recent hours, Moscow has once again tried to appease the US president with flattery, after noting that statements by members of the Russian government considering negotiations with the United States to be stalled had caused the worst fall in the Moscow stock market since September 2022. awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Trump, lamenting that the committee often rewards "people who have done nothing for peace." Separately, the Kremlin's two strongmen in negotiations with the Americans, Yuri Uyxakov and Kirill Dmitriev, have gone on the offensive. defending the results of the Alaska summit between presidents. A maneuver that, judging by Washington's reaction, didn't work.

The Kremlin's fear

Moscow's main fear is that Kiev will use long-range missiles to redouble the campaign of attacks against Russian oil facilities, which is jeopardizing gasoline supplies in several regions of the country. This Monday, Ukrainian special services blew up the Feodosia oil terminal in Crimea for the third time in two weeks.

Zelensky insisted, in an interview on Fox News, that the Tomahawks would be used "exclusively" against Russian military targets. Western military experts admit that the delivery of these weapons to Ukraine "would make a difference," but they doubt that the Ukrainian army has a way to use them. According to analyst Dara Massicot, Kiiv It does not have the ships and submarines from which missiles of this type are fired. and has very few ground-based launch systems.

Trump seems more interested in playing the Tomahawk as his final negotiating card, having seen that the coercive ultimatum has worked for Gaza, than in taking a decisive step toward military confrontation with Russia. It is no coincidence that the president himself has reiterated that the United States would not directly sell the missiles to Ukraine, but that NATO would be the one to supply them, subject to payment to the White House.