The art of no deal: Trump’s rhetoric on Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2025

One of Trump’s campaign promises was to end the Russian-Ukrainian war within 24 hours of his election. He expected to be able to call Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy and reach a peace agreement before his inauguration in January 2025. When making these statements at the time, did the American president anticipate that the process would drag on for at least a year?

In the first month of his second coming to the White House, the president believed the war would end within weeks. He later moved the deadline for a peace deal to Easter (although in April, Russia ultimately agreed neither to an Easter ceasefire nor to a peace agreement). He postponed peace for several more months, and in July gave Putin 50 days to wind down military operations, later shortening the deadline to 12 days.

He often resorted to grand but vague statements that a peace deal was close, that negotiations were making progress, and that losses on both sides were unbearably high and the bloodshed had to stop. In addition, he regularly repeated that this was “Biden’s war” and that the war would not have happened if he had been president in February 2022. At times, the American president openly complained that he did not like “that it takes long at all”, while Europeans feared that his impatience might lead him to abandon the peace talks altogether.

In 2025, Trump kept Ukrainians in a state of intense emotional strain. At times he claimed that Zelenskyy was a “dictator”, then hastily walked back his own words. At times he said that restoring all territories under Kyiv’s control was impossible, and at others that reclaiming the 1991 borders was entirely realistic. Throughout the year, he frequently had “great conversations” with Putin, after which Moscow demonstratively attacked Ukraine, including civilian targets.

Over the course of 2025, Trump’s discourse combined three mechanisms. The first is the personalization of diplomacy. Trump presents himself as an irreplaceable figure capable of ending the war. He emphasizes his allegedly unique ability to be an impartial mediator between Kyiv and Moscow. The second mechanism is coercion and pressure. For example, sanctions against Russia are used not as a deterrent, but as a means of pressure to accelerate a peace agreement. Trump also exerted pressure on Kyiv in various ways and suspended military aid to Ukraine until the country’s leadership showed “readiness for peace”. The third mechanism is a partial reinterpretation of the peace agreement as a business deal. Trump has been making business deals his entire life and therefore conducts these negotiations as if they were a game on the stock market rather than war, peace and geopolitics. The only difference, in his view, is that Ukraine is allegedly unwilling to conclude an agreement, while Russia is acting from a position of strength. Trump’s peace rhetoric revolves around quick decisions made “from the top down” and personal influence rather than multilateral and institutional cooperation. Such a rhetorical model makes the role of Trump and the United States in the peace process asymmetrical, negates Europe as an equal partner, and effectively marginalizes Ukraine.

January

January in Donald Trump’s rhetoric on the war in Ukraine can be described as a “turbo mode” and the personalization of the peace process. The war is framed as a purely managerial problem that can be quickly “closed” with the “right” negotiating skills. Hence, apparently, the symbolic 100-day horizon voiced by Special Envoy Keith Kellogg, and Trump’s constant insistence that the war “would never have started” had he been president.

A defining feature of January’s rhetoric is the sharp devaluation of the war’s structural causes and the role of institutions. Trump says he is ready for a personal meeting with Putin and presents the Russian president as a party open to agreements. The war appears as bloody chaos that can be ended by a swift deal if one reaches an agreement now.

In parallel, a narrative of Ukraine’s responsibility for the war’s duration takes shape. Although Trump acknowledges the asymmetry of forces and even partially legitimizes Ukrainian resistance (“he [Zelenskyy — ed.] fighting a much bigger entity, much bigger, much more powerful”), this is quickly neutralized by the claim that Zelenskyy “should not have done that” because “a deal could have been made.” In this way, Ukraine’s agency is reduced: military resistance is presented not as a forced response to aggression, but as a mistaken choice by a specific leader.

In January, Trump’s rhetoric is still relatively cautious in its personal assessments of Putin and does not yet contain open delegitimization of Zelenskyy, but it already lays the groundwork for future pressure: peace is possible quickly, negotiations are simple, and the prolongation of the war is portrayed as the result of poor decisions by individual actors rather than of Russian aggression itself.

February

The rhetoric that followed from February 2025 onwards was marked by an escalation and radicalization of Trump’s rhetoric regarding the war against Ukraine. While in January the hopeful image of a “quick peace” dominated, in February this vision was filled with concrete content – and this content increasingly took on an unfavourable shape. The rhetoric shifts from general promises to the public construction of “realistic” limits to a possible compromise.

A decisive shift was the open downgrading of Ukraine’s status as a negotiating partner. Trump repeatedly refuses to recognize Kyiv as an equal participant in the supposed peace process. He declares that Zelenskyy is “not very important” for the negotiations and allows for dialogue without Ukrainian participation. The meeting between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia without Kyiv was not an exception, but an expression of this logic: the war is seen as a problem that “the major players” must solve.

At the same time, Trump is gradually stepping up his public questioning of the legitimacy of the Ukrainian leadership. The issue of elections, the claim that Zelenskyy has only “four percent approval”, and accusations of a “dictatorship” in Ukraine are becoming instruments for delegitimizing the Ukrainian president. The elections are not presented as a sovereign decision of a country at war, but as a prerequisite for peace negotiations. This shifts the focus from Russian aggression to the alleged “shortcomings” of Ukrainian democracy.

Another new element is the rhetorical normalization of territorial concessions. President Trump, his Special Representative for Ukraine Issues Keith Kellogg, and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are all saying that the 1991 borders, or even those in 2014 (after Crimea was taken over and Donbas was partially occupied), are not realistic. Although the politicians emphasized that acknowledging the losses does not mean legal recognition, the rhetoric signals acceptance of the de facto border changes as the basis for a future agreement.

At the same time, Putin’s rhetorical image in the statements of the new American president remains soft and pragmatic: Trump avoids the word “dictator”, speaks of his desire to end the war, and proposes major economic agreements after a settlement. Trump even assures that the Kremlin has no objection to European peacekeeping forces. At the same time, Zelenskyy is portrayed as a leader who wants to fight.

February 2025 marks the transition from a mediation approach to an asymmetrical “peace-making” process, not only because of the much-discussed dispute between Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Zelenskyy that month. The US continues to position itself as a mediator, but in fact exerts unilateral pressure on Ukraine. Trump’s administration restricts Ukraine’s ability to act, both rhetorically and practically, and expands the scope for pro-Russian victory plans.

March

In March 2025, Trump’s rhetoric shifts from a declared peacemaking approach to increasingly open pressure on Ukraine. The rhetoric becomes harsher, more emotional, and more fragmented: threats of sanctions and “deadlines” are increasingly combined with leniency toward the Kremlin and the increasingly obvious de facto blackmail of Ukraine.

At the beginning of the month, Trump demonstratively downplays the significance of the Russian threat by publicly placing Putin’s behaviour behind the domestic problems of the US – migration and crime. This approach puts the war in Ukraine in a secondary, peripheral context in which it does not pose an existential challenge to the West. Trump justified the suspension of direct American aid by citing Kyiv’s alleged unwillingness to end the war. This represented a qualitative shift from merely rhetorical pressure to practical coercive measures.

In March 2025, the asymmetry in Trump’s interpretations and demands shifted further. Ukraine is warned that it may “not survive” and will “face major problems”. In contrast, Trump offered gentler criticism and demonstrative understanding toward Russia. He emphasized that it is “easier” for him to communicate with Moscow, that Putin “wants peace”, and that the US should treat the Russian Federation as a “valuable earth”. Even when the Kremlin abruptly rejected the proposal for a ceasefire, Trump publicly announced that he nevertheless “enjoyed” the conversation with Putin.

At the same time, personal annoyance with the Kremlin emerges for the first time in March. Trump declared that he was “very angry” and “pissed off” about Putin’s statements on the illegitimacy of the Ukrainian government and introduced the idea of secondary tariffs on Russian oil. However, such statements were followed by the caveat that he would only do so if he concluded that Russia was guilty. Such conditionality leaves a great deal of room for interpretation and action.

Another novelty is the increasingly open discussion of topics that were previously on the margins of public discourse: occupied Ukrainian territories, nuclear power plants and resources, and “psychological deadlines”. In Trump’s rhetoric, peace now increasingly appears as a complex agreement on the redistribution of control and property – and no longer just a question of a quick ceasefire. A model of “peace through pressure” is emerging, in which Ukraine becomes the target of coercive measures, while Russia is seen as a difficult but rational partner with whom one can and must reach agreement – even if this means blurring red lines.

April

April in Donald Trump’s rhetoric becomes a month of open irritation with the course of the war and Russia’s behaviour – not of a reconsideration of his approach. He continues to distribute responsibility for the war among Moscow, Kyiv, and the previous US administration.

Trump responds systematically for the first time to Russian strikes on civilians — calling the bombings “horrible”, saying he “doesn’t like it”, and urging Russia to “get moving”. Yet even in these moments, condemnation remains limited and softened: the Russian strike on Sumy on April 13th, which killed 35 civilians, the American leader explains as a “mistake”, immediately relieving Putin of political responsibility. Any expression of outrage is accompanied by a reminder that this is “Biden’s war”, not his own.

A noticeable shift in April is the direct transfer of blame for the war onto Ukraine and its leadership. Zelenskyy in Trump’s rhetoric is no longer merely “obstructing peace” (as in the winter rhetoric), but becomes one of those responsible for the war. The claim that Ukraine “allowed” the war to begin is repeated in various formulations — particularly in connection with the Patriot issue. This amounts to an inversion of responsibility, in which Russian aggression appears as a reaction rather than the root cause.

In all of his April statements, Trump definitively cements the normalization of Ukraine’s territorial losses as the baseline condition for negotiations. Crimea in his rhetoric is no longer a subject of debate: it was “lost many years ago”, will “remain with Russia”, and Kyiv’s very raising of the issue is framed as harmful to peace. Even the assertion that Russia made “a pretty big concession” by agreeing not to seize all of Ukraine shifts the frame toward a logic of rewarding the aggressor for restraining its own ambitions.

At the same time, Trump displays inconsistency: he announces a deadline for peace — and then immediately walks it back; speaks of strong pressure on Russia — yet refuses new sanctions; expresses doubt that Putin is acting honestly — while simultaneously insisting that he allegedly “would like to stop the war”.

April can thus be described as a month of emotional escalation without a strategic break. The rhetoric becomes harsher in form, but increasingly pro-Russian in substance: peace is imagined as possible only through Ukrainian concessions. Russia remains the actor to be “persuaded”, rather than coerced.

May

May demonstrates the culmination of a personalized model of settlement, in which peace in Ukraine is effectively equated with the figure of Donald Trump and his personal relationship with Putin. The American politician oscillates between optimism, frustration, and threats to “step aside”. This creates the impression that the peace process rests not on institutions, but on the moods of a single leader.

At the beginning of the month, public pessimism appears for the first time: Trump allows that a peace agreement may prove impossible because of the “great hatred” between the sides. At the same time, he almost immediately returns to a familiar explanation—Putin is becoming more “more eager to settle the war” due to falling oil prices, and thus economic pressure, rather than war crimes, is once again presented as the key factor.

A defining feature of May is the disregard for Russia’s refusal of a ceasefire at Trump’s request and the parallel pressure exerted on Ukraine. The Kremlin’s rejection of a 30-day ceasefire does not provoke an immediate response, while Kyiv is publicly instructed to “immediately” agree to direct negotiations in the format proposed by Putin. The asymmetry is evident: Russia’s initiatives are automatically treated as legitimate, whereas Ukraine’s position is perceived as an obstacle.

In May, the thesis that “nothing will happen” without a personal meeting between Trump and Putin gains strength. Peace is portrayed as the result of a direct deal between two leaders, while all other actors — including Ukraine — are pushed to the sidelines. Phone calls with Putin are described in warm, almost complimentary terms, even when they produce no results.

At the same time, at the end of the month the rhetoric shifts sharply. After massive shelling, Trump says that Putin has “gone absolutely crazy”, is “playing with fire”, and wants “all of Ukraine”. An open threat of Russia’s downfall and possible sanctions emerges. Yet even in this phase, he simultaneously criticizes Zelenskyy, accusing him of causing problems, and explains the refusal to impose sanctions by a desire not to spoil the deal. The end of May is a crisis of trust: Trump acknowledges that Putin may be deceiving him, but grants another one and a half to two weeks. May shows that personalization, indulgence toward the aggressor, and pressure on the victim no longer guarantee even the illusion of a rapid peace. But Trump is still not ready to abandon his previous strategy.

June

June in Donald Trump’s rhetoric marks a dangerous shift from indulgence to the effective legitimization of Russian strikes. The central motif of the month is the explanation and rationalization of violence through a logic of “provocation” and “response”, in which Ukraine increasingly appears not as a victim but as a trigger of escalation.

The key moment becomes his comment on Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian airfields. Trump states outright that Ukraine gave “a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night”, effectively accepting Russia’s logic of collective punishment. He draws no distinction between a military operation against military targets and massive strikes on civilian infrastructure. The Russian response is presented as understandable and almost inevitable.

The same approach is evident in his descriptions of conversations with Putin. The war is compared to “children fighting in a park” — a metaphor that reduces full-scale aggression, genocidal practices, and systematic war crimes to a simple misunderstanding between two sides that “just can’t be pulled apart”. Such reduction allows Trump to maintain the posture of an external arbiter without acknowledging the asymmetry of responsibility.

June also records a retreat from structural instruments of pressure. Trump publicly admits that he has not read the bill on sweeping sanctions against Russia, despite its near-unanimous support in the Senate. Sanctions are once again shifted into a conditional mode: they are possible only “if necessary” and only if he personally decides that Russia does not want to stop the bloodshed. In this way, the sanctions issue becomes not institutional, but personal.

At the same time, a motif of lost control emerges in the rhetoric. The situation in Ukraine, according to Trump, has gotten “out of control”. The US leader, however, continues to believe in the possibility of a personal deal with Putin, expressing surprise that it has not yet materialized.

In June, Trump also returns to old revisionist theses: the war would not have happened had Russia not been expelled from the G8; the full-scale invasion would not have occurred had he won in 2020. In both cases, responsibility is once again removed from Moscow and shifted onto the West or US domestic politics.

June ends with an ambiguous signal: Trump allows for the possibility of transferring Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, but within the broader frame of the month this appears not as a strategic turn, but as a tactical adjustment against the backdrop of an acknowledgment that the situation is deteriorating faster than his rhetoric.

July

July can be described as a month of verbal rupture that nonetheless does not culminate in a full change of political course. Donald Trump’s rhetoric toward Russia hardens sharply, but its internal logic remains contradictory: condemnation is paired with constraints on Ukraine, and threats toward Moscow with the continual postponement of decisions.

At the beginning of the month, Trump still tries to preserve the inertia of personalized diplomacy: he announces new calls with Putin, acknowledges the lack of progress on a ceasefire, but avoids drastic steps. In parallel, he confirms arms deliveries to Ukraine, which sound less like an exception than a necessity.

A visible shift is recorded between July 5th and 8th. Trump publicly states that Putin likely does not want peace and “wants to keep killing people”. He describes the Russian leader as someone who is “very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless” and acknowledges that these interactions consistently yield no results.

It is at this point that Trump announces a “turnaround” — the United States will send more weapons to Ukraine, primarily defensive ones. The justification is telling: not a strategy of deterring Russia, but a humanitarian argument about “very heavy strikes” and “chaos”. Ukraine, however, appears more as an object of compassion than as a subject with a right to victory.

At the same time, July clearly demonstrates the limits of this turnaround. Trump opposes Ukrainian strikes on Moscow and deep inside Russia and does not authorize the transfer of long-range weapons. Assistance is therefore permitted only to the extent that it does not create a sense of strategic threat for the Kremlin. This is an asymmetric escalation, in which Russia can strike without constraints, while Ukraine is allowed only to “defend itself”.

The second half of the month unfolds with talk relating to deadlines and sanctions threats. First there are 50 days, and then 10 to 12. Trump speaks of “very severe tariffs” and secondary sanctions, but in parallel admits that he is not confident in their effectiveness. Even when he labels Russia’s actions “disgusting” and “sad”, sanctions are framed not as a tool of coercion, but as a gesture.

Trump acknowledges that Putin is letting him down. However, “he’s disappointed but not done with” the Russian president. Peace continues to be imagined as a potential outcome of a personal conversation, despite all the accumulated experience of its futility.

July demonstrates the limit of Trump’s patience, but not the limit of policy: the rhetoric grows harsher, assistance to Ukraine becomes more tangible, yet the basic logic of restraining Ukraine in order “not to provoke” Russia remains unchanged.

August

August clearly becomes the apogee of Trump’s model of “peace through a personal deal”. All rhetoric concentrates around the Alaska summit, and the war against Ukraine is effectively reduced to the question of the success or failure of a meeting between two leaders.

The month begins with a demonstrative show of force — the deployment of nuclear submarines following Moscow’s nuclear threats. Yet this move is framed not as an element of deterring Russia in its war against Ukraine, but as a response to a threat to the United States. Ukraine thus once again falls outside the focus.

In August, Trump definitively cements the thesis that peace is possible without Ukraine at the table. He states outright that Zelenskyy will not take part in the Alaska talks, promising a possible trilateral meeting only “if it’s a good meeting”. In this way, Ukraine becomes not a subject, but a variable that is included or switched off depending on the course of the dialogue with the Kremlin.

The rhetoric on the eve of the summit combines threats and optimism: “very severe consequences” coexist with confidence that Putin will come to “make a deal”. Even the idea of “territorial exchanges” is presented as a principled understanding, despite the acknowledgment that Ukraine may not accept it.

After the summit, a characteristic break occurs: there are no concrete results, although the meeting is declared “productive”, sanctions are postponed, and the rhetoric once again returns to expectations of “major progress”. Trump immediately speaks of a peace agreement, dismissing a ceasefire as an interim stage. In other words, he seeks to bargain over final terms amid intense hostilities.

August also reveals the vagueness of the position on security guarantees for Ukraine: NATO is ruled out, US troops are excluded, but the possibility of “air support” and “long-term engagement” remains nebulous.

August is a month of maximal political risk, in which the stakes are raised, strategic frameworks are absent, and peace is once again reduced to faith in a personal deal with Putin.

September

In September, we observe perhaps the most visible conceptual shift of the entire period: Donald Trump for the first time begins to move beyond the symmetrical frame of “both sides are to blame”.

Although the month begins with traditional statements of frustration and vague promises to “do something”, new elements soon emerge. Trump increasingly speaks of Russia’s energy revenues as the key to the war, publicly pressures Europe over oil purchases, and even allows for the necessity of sanctions against China as an indirect lever.

The culmination comes when he finally calls Russia the aggressor. This formulation sharply contrasts with his previous rhetoric and effectively breaks the foundation of the “two-sided fight”. For the first time, Russia’s losses are explained not by an abstract logic of war, but by its status as the aggressor.

At the same time, contradictions do not disappear. Trump simultaneously urges Zelenskyy to “make a deal” and expresses admiration for his courage, speaks of distrust toward Putin, yet is unwilling to say clearly whether he trusts him at all. The issue of security guarantees is once again deferred.

Also notable is a cautious optimism about Ukraine’s chances of reclaiming territory — an idea that only a few months earlier had been almost unthinkable for him. The comparison of Russia to a “paper tiger” definitively dismantles the image of an invincible force that he himself had often reproduced before.

In September, Trump’s illusions about Russia have not vanished, but they have somewhat blurred. The politician begins to acknowledge structural causes for the war — aggression, resources, deterrence — rather than exclusively personal factors. This is not yet a strategy, but a step away from improvisational diplomacy.

October

Donald Trump’s rhetoric in October was maximally tactical. He balanced between demonstrations of pressure on the Kremlin (rhetoric about Tomahawks, hints at sanctions, nuclear deterrence) and signals of readiness for compromise and “understanding” of Putin’s position. Negotiations became the central theme: the US president spoke of their proximity, the possibility of a swift deal, and Putin’s alleged willingness to negotiate, even while acknowledging that the Kremlin might be stalling.

Another important marker was his personal endorsement of Orbán as a mediator and a potential venue for a meeting with Putin, further underscoring the personalized, rather than institutional, character of Trump’s foreign policy.

In October, Ukraine in Trump’s rhetoric appeared more as a party seeking an offensive, but one that would be better off agreeing to freeze the war along the front line.

November

In November 2025, the focus shifted from public statements to attempts to exert pressure through deadlines and economic arguments. Trump spoke of “progress” in resolving the war, rejected the delivery of Tomahawk missiles, and emphasized that Russia was interested in resuming business relations with the US. Sanctions were no longer presented as punishment, but as a negotiating tool that could be tightened or maintained depending on the course of negotiations.

There was a return to an ultimatum tone toward Ukraine — setting deadlines for agreeing to the American “peace plan” and publicly shifting responsibility for the prolongation of the war to Kyiv and the previous US administration.

Overall, November was marked by a transition from loud statements to the construction of an asymmetric negotiating field, in which pressure was concentrated primarily on Ukraine. At the same time, Trump consistently minimized demands on Russia, describing a “halt to the offensive” as the Kremlin’s principal concession.

December

In December, Trump’s rhetoric became even more one-sided and normative. He spoke openly about Russia’s stronger negotiating position, the need for elections in Ukraine, and the questionable legitimacy of Ukraine’s leadership in the context of the peace process. Claims emerged that Moscow had allegedly already agreed to the American plan, while Kyiv “does not want” to or “does not read” the proposed terms. Trump reproduced old Kremlin narratives — about the impossibility of Ukraine’s NATO membership, a “lost” Crimea, and a supposed public demand among Ukrainians for a deal at any price.

Despite declarations of US readiness to contribute to security guarantees, the overall tone of December marked a shift from the role of mediator to that of an arbiter who determines who is obstructing peace. Thus, the end of the year was marked by an almost complete rhetorical breakdown of balance between the sides in favour of the Russian position.

Donald Trump’s rhetoric in 2025 demonstrates that the concept of “peace through a personal deal” consolidated his role as a key intermediary for the Kremlin rather than ensuring security for Ukraine. Despite loud statements, deadlines, and emotional pressure, the war did not end, and Ukraine remains in a state of constant uncertainty. His approach underscores an asymmetric model of peacemaking, in which the United States and the president’s personalized ambitions outweigh institutional mechanisms, leaving Ukraine marginalized. The year of American “peace” ended without peace, but with Putin’s removal from geopolitical isolation. This called into question the ability of the United States, under such an approach, to serve as a mediator capable of guaranteeing a genuine end to the war.

Lesia Bidochko is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

Donald Trump, Trump Administration, US foreign policy, US-Ukraine relations, Volodymyr Zelenskyy