Trump's NATO and Crimea Desperation

His final attempt to end the war simply misses the mark, again

Russia doesn’t want peace, and U.S. President Donald Trump is finding it hard to accept it.

Many are accusing him of wanting Ukraine to “capitulate”, but I disagree. First, because Trump wants this war to stop genuinely. He doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t like wars, and that’s his whole track record in office since 2017, which is blatantly obvious. He doesn’t particularly care about the terms as long as they’re not completely out of line for him and the U.S. To his credit, he stated this multiple times, but the media didn’t amplify them as much as his scandalous utterings.

Second, Trump’s statements are often taken out of his general train of thought. I’ve heard him speak IN FULL on multiple occasions. His mantra remains the same: Ukraine was always in Putin’s eye apple, Russia should’ve never attacked, it did not attack when he was President, “Crooked Joe” was incompetent, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should’ve never let the war take place by choosing to strike some ephemeral deal with Russia because Russia is bigger and Ukraine doesn’t have the capacity to win this war.

It is against this backdrop, his narcissistic nature, and the true desire to focus on other matters in general that you need to view his latest “offer” for a “peace deal”, i.e., giving Crimea to Russia and abandoning Ukraine’s NATO membership prospect.

Three months of talks with Russia showed Trump what he, as a person, is the most averse to: that he’s not exceptional. This ever-growing frustration explains occasional rants on Truth Social and beyond, where he accuses everyone of everything in tough terms. At a glance, it appears that the targets of his posts are Biden, Zelenskyy, and Putin, but in fact, it’s nothing but a reverse way of lashing out against yourself by deflecting the blame and putting it on others.

At this stage, he likely feels humiliated by both Zelenskyy, who met with King Charles III in some hoodie and not an Ermengildo Zegna suit right after the Oval Office spat, and Putin, who doesn’t show the respect that Trump would expect from him, given their “bromance.”

If Ukraine were higher on his priority list, he’d likely corner Putin more, though he’s open to introducing more sanctions if Russia doesn’t comply. But it’s not. He wants to get it over with on terms he believes are acceptable, akin to “I give you this, you do this in return, let’s cut a deal and stop this nonsense.”

Clearly, it doesn’t work, which is why we’re nearing the climax of this negotiation show, where Ukraine is offered to give Russia Crimea and abandon its NATO path as the U.S. threatens to abandon peace talks altogether.

And it’s unlikely to work either.

One, Russia did not attack Ukraine because of NATO membership for a very simple reason: NATO membership was never truly on the table for Ukraine.

It’s a red herring that has been used for decades by Moscow, and Kyiv to some extent, to justify their actions in whichever direction they pleased. It is not to say that Russia was content with the former Soviet camp countries joining NATO, but it was too weak in the 1990s and early 2000s to do anything about it. Besides, comparing Ukraine to Estonia is really not helpful.

Two, Crimea has become an integral part of Russia, connected to the mainland where the Black Sea fleet is likely permanently stationed, meaning that the “NATO ships won’t be stationed there instead.”

A true one, not the Potemkin one that will be spun by the likes of Vladimir Solovyev.

Because Russia’s goal isn’t for the West to recognize Crimea and start investing in the peninsula, or say that Ukraine won’t be a NATO member state, but to eradicate our statehood. Naturally, the Kremlin cannot publicly announce such goals, so all these NATO excuses are being used.

The crux of the problem is that while both NATO and Crimea are naturally a welcome addition to Russia’s ambitions, they’re not the solution to this war.

If it were that, I’d consider doing both, as I see no existential value in red herring integrations or a peninsula that while I believe to be part of Ukraine, as per international law and territorial integrity reasons, filled with Russophiles who kept crippling the country’s trajectory shift from East to West and have very little to do with Ukrainian culture per se — unlike Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhya that are core to Ukraine’s culture.

But they won’t stop the war, the goals of which are dramatically different. If Trump truly wants the minerals deal to benefit the U.S., he’s in for a rude awakening to his own business interests that he truly cares about.