{"id":156362,"date":"2025-07-09T15:21:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/has-the-trump-putin-bromance-finally-run-its-course-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:21:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:21:02","slug":"has-the-trump-putin-bromance-finally-run-its-course-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/has-the-trump-putin-bromance-finally-run-its-course-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the Trump-Putin bromance finally run its course? – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president appears to have run out of patience with his Russian counterpart \u2013 but how that transmits into practical support for Kyiv remains to be seen
Europe live \u2013 latest updates<\/a>
\u201cI<\/span>\u2019m not happy with Putin. I can tell you that much right now,\u201d Trump said, expressing his frustration with the Russian leader over the war in Ukraine. \u201cWe get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin<\/a> \u2026 He\u2019s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.\u201d
It may not have been Churchillian in oratorical flourish, and with Trump everything is capable of being reversed in hours, but possibly, just possibly, the rupture between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump has happened. If so it is a transformatory moment, and a vindication for both Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> as he arrives in Rome for the annual Ukraine reconstruction conference and for those others, notably the British and the French governments, who have patiently helped the scales to fall from Trump\u2019s eyes about Putin\u2019s true intentions. At long last and after many false starts, the US president seems to have accepted he is unpersuadable on ending the war.
With Trump the parting of the ways is unlikely to be complete, or permanent. Above all Trump\u2019s disappointment in Putin may not translate into the kind of practical financial and support Ukraine<\/a> and Europe has been seeking, but America First is no longer Russia First.
It has been a long process with many low points. In February it seemed as if the whole transatlantic alliance was on the brink of collapse, as Trump initiated direct talks with Putin, and ordered Ukraine to make concessions. On 19 February he echoed Kremlin talking points in a post to his Truth Social network<\/a> that called Zelenskyy a \u201cdictator\u201d and warned him time was running out for Ukraine: \u201cThink of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the US into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn\u2019t be won [\u2026] A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.\u201d
A week later at the UN general assembly in New York, the US opposed a European-drafted resolution condemning Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and supporting Ukraine\u2019s territorial integrity \u2013 voting the same way as Russia<\/a>, North Korea and Belarus.
Veteran UK diplomats were then left shaken when the US drafted and voted for a security council resolution that called for an end to the conflict but contained no criticism of Russia. The UK and France both abstained after their attempts to amend the wording were vetoed<\/a>.
Later that week came the televised blowup with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, followed by the hasty embrace of the Ukrainian leader in London by Keir Starmer and King Charles. The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, cheered on the White House from Moscow. \u201cHow Trump and Vance exercised restraint and didn\u2019t punch this scumbag is a miracle of restraint,\u201d she posted on Telegram.
All the while, the US negotiator Steve Witkoff revealed a depth of ignorance about the history of Ukraine and a sympathy with Putin\u2019s claims the war had been provoked. Frequently he tipped over from trying to understand the Russian perspective into siding with it. In an interview with Tucker Carlson that truly alarmed European diplomats, Witkoff asked: \u201cWhy would they want to absorb Ukraine? For what purpose, exactly? They don\u2019t need to absorb Ukraine. That would be like occupying Gaza \u2026 But the Russians also have what they want. They\u2019ve gotten \u2013 they\u2019ve reclaimed these five regions. They have Crimea, and they\u2019ve gotten what they want. So why do they need more?\u201d
Witkoff also delivered a portrait commissioned by Putin of a bloodied Trump, fist clenched, after last year\u2019s assassination attempt. Putin revealed he had prayed for Trump, and on 14 June he remembered the president\u2019s birthday with a phone call.
Yet by the end of March, Trump\u2019s frustrations with Putin started to show, as the Russian leader refused to commit to the 30-day ceasefire he had proposed and that Ukraine had quickly accepted. On 1 April the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, returned from eight hours playing golf with Trump to report for the first time that he was losing patience with Russia.
Still, even by the end of May it was clear that the process of Trump\u2019s patience wearing thin had an almost infinite quality. After fruitless diplomatic exchanges in Istanbul, continued evasions about a ceasefire and escalating strikes on Ukraine, Trump poured out his frustration on Truth Social warning that Putin was \u201cplaying with fire\u201d<\/a> and declaring in the Oval Office on 28 May that he would know within a fortnight if \u201cPutin is tapping us along\u201d.
This article includes content hosted on truthsocial.com. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'<\/strong>.
Mid-June came, and still no change in strategy.
A confluence of events may however have tipped Trump in recent weeks. The Nato summit on 25 June was gift-wrapped by Europe as a triumph for Trump on defence spending, making him better disposed to listen to Europe\u2019s security concerns. \u201cThere is a line between flattery and self-abasement, and we happily crossed it,\u201d said one European diplomat.
The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, called Trump \u201cDaddy\u201d.
With his ego massaged, Trump sounded like a man less willing to be distracted by Putin. \u201cI consider Putin a person that\u2019s been misguided. I\u2019m very surprised actually. I thought we would have had that war settled,\u201d he told the media at the summit, revealing that Putin had called and offered to intervene with Iran.
\u201cI said: \u2018No, no, you help me get a settlement with you, with Russia,\u2019 and I think we are going to be doing that.\u201d
But the next call between the two on 4 July did not go well either, and it seemed as if Putin had determined he could extract more by war than by keeping Trump sweet. The Kremlin was uncompromising: \u201cOur president said that Russia will achieve its goals, that is, the elimination of the well-known root causes that led to the current state of affairs,\u201d said Yuri Ushakov, a close adviser to the Russian leader. \u201cRussia will not back down from these goals.\u201d
The deadly nightly Russian assaults on Ukraine (the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said Russia had launched 20,000 drone strikes this year) could not be kept from US screens and, finally, Trump was not happy when it emerged last week that the Pentagon was withholding a shipment of arms earmarked for Ukraine and no one informed the White House. The defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, looked distinctly uncomfortable.
For Ukraine\u2019s supporters in Congress and in Europe, the issue now is the extent to which Trump\u2019s frustration with Russia transmits into practical support for Kyiv. The true test will come if the crushing sanctions tabled months ago by the Republican senator Lindsey Graham are finally given the presidential go-ahead. The measures would impose a 500% tariff on imports from any country that purchases Russian uranium, gas or oil, with India and China the worst affected.
Peter Mandelson, the UK ambassador to the US, has been working behind the scenes to refine Graham\u2019s blunderbuss so the proposed secondary sanctions do not catch European firms in their net.
Graham is now proposing a carve-out to his bill to spare countries who still import Russian gas, but have supported Ukraine in its three-year war with the Kremlin\u2019s military. The bill also gives Trump the right to waive for 180 days sanctions on countries purchasing Russian oil or uranium and, in its revised form, a second 180-day waiver is proposed.
\u201cWe\u2019re moving,\u201d Graham said after Trump\u2019s diatribe against Putin, adding that Trump \u201ctold me it\u2019s time to move so we\u2019re going to move\u201d. For Ukrainians on the frontline, they can only hope a turning point has come.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US president appears to have run out of patience with his Russian counterpart \u2013 but how that transmits into practical support for Kyiv remains to be seenEurope live \u2013 latest updates\u201cI\u2019m not happy with Putin. I can tell you that much right now,\u201d Trump said, expressing his frustration with the Russian leader over the war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156363,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}