Does Trump's tough talk on Putin mean anything for Ukraine?

Is Donald Trump finally prepared to do the right thing for Ukraine and get tough with Vladimir Putin — or is his supposed pivot toward Ukraine just a lot of noise?

The talk, at least, has been encouraging — a dramatic shift from the time when Trump seemed to blame Ukraine for the war and many people worried that he was actively rooting for Putin to win. In the past couple of weeks, he has repeatedly lambasted Putin for continuing to bomb Ukrainian cities despite being "very nice to us" and paying lip service to peace. It seems Trump has finally discovered that when you’re dealing with Putin, "The talk doesn’t mean anything" — which is what his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to tell him months ago during the White House meeting that became a blowup.

Now the question is whether Trump’s talk of tough measures to force Russia into peace means anything.

Trump’s much-anticipated "surprise" announcement on Monday turned out to be anticlimactic: Trump was giving Putin 50 days to start serious peace talks before imposing "very severe" tariffs on Russia’s trading partners. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s dismissive remark had a point: "Fifty days — before, it was 24 hours, and then 100 days — we’ve seen it all before." 

Nonetheless, for many Ukrainians and Ukraine supporters, the encouraging part is Trump’s commitment to arming Ukraine, albeit under a new arrangement in which European NATO countries will pay for them. Weapons deliveries, including urgently needed Patriot missile defense systems, amount to action and not talk.

Even with regard to weapons, Trump’s pivot may be a jittery one. Suggestions that the U.S. would send long-range missiles and even authorize their use to strike at Moscow have been denied, though in a way that leaves the option open in the future. Moreover, deliveries of weapons through European partners were not arranged before Trump’s announcement, leaving some questions to be sorted out.

Now there is talk of a new megadeal under which battlefield-tested, advanced Ukrainian drones would be traded to the U.S. for weapons — but the details remain unclear.

Still, given earlier fears that the Trump administration was going to abandon Ukraine altogether — or try to force Kyiv into de facto surrender — these are still good signs.

What will happen after 50 days? While there is speculation that Putin will try to use that time to seize the territories Russia had formally annexed in September 2022 — and then push for a settlement that will let him keep those lands — military analysts agree this is highly unlikely. While Russia’s summer offensive has had some successes, the gains have been very slow and extremely costly.

The sanctions Trump is threatening, which will slap huge tariffs on countries like India and China if they continue to buy Russian oil and gas, may or may not have an effect; Russia is adept at evading sanctions. Can any economic sanctions damage the Russian economy enough to force Putin to stop the war, either by draining his coffers or by causing enough discontent to threaten his stability? So many experts have made so many predictions that confident forecasts are best avoided.

In the meantime, the U.S. and Europe must be prepared to continue supporting Ukraine and finding better and smarter ways to do it — including the use of frozen Russian assets, which may finally be in the works. Trump’s commitment remains unpredictable. All we can say so far is that he has made steps in the right direction.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.