Trump officials eye a longer road to Ukraine peace as frustration mounts

By Erin Banco and Gram Slattery

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior Trump administration officials have discussed in recent days the likelihood that the U.S. will be unable to secure a Ukraine peace deal in the next few months and are drawing up new plans to pressure both Kyiv and Moscow, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

At the start of his administration, President Donald Trump and his top advisers set out to reach a full ceasefire by April or May. They hoped to broker a lasting peace deal in the following months. 

But neither agreement appears imminent, the officials said, raising the possibility that the three-year-old war will drag on and that Ukraine will need more Western support for its military operations.

Such an outcome would be anathema to Trump, a self-styled dealmaker who has repeatedly promised a quick end to a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and risks pulling NATO into a direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.

Top U.S. officials have for weeks complained privately about Kyiv's handling of the negotiations and what they view as resistance to a minerals deal with Washington and moving forward with peace talks. But in recent days, the sources said, officials are increasingly frustrated with Moscow.

In a series of meetings and calls over the weekend, officials inside the White House and State Department acknowledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin is actively resisting Washington’s attempts to strike a lasting peace accord and discussed what, if any, economic or diplomatic punishments could push Russia closer to a deal, the sources said. 

The growing anger toward Moscow, including from the president himself, marks a shift in the administration's internal deliberations about Moscow's willingness to negotiate.

Trump has for weeks said he trusts the Russian president and that he believes the leader is committed to peace, but the White House has grown wary of Putin's intentions in recent days, the sources said, though Trump continues to signal publicly his belief that Putin wants to end the war.

It is not clear what specific plans the administration may have to pressure Moscow, but one senior U.S. official said the White House is continuing to look at additional tariff and sanctions measures it can levy on the country.

On Sunday, Trump told NBC News he was "pissed off" after Putin criticized the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and suggested the U.S. could impose secondary tariffs of 25%-50% on buyers of Russian oil. 

In a meeting with Baltic foreign ministers last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told his counterparts that peace in Ukraine was not guaranteed and indicated the U.S. was still far from securing a deal, according to a summary of the meeting seen by Reuters.

"There is a deep frustration with the Russian government over negotiations," National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt said. "President Trump was clear he will consider imposing secondary sanctions on all oil coming out of Russia if they are not serious about bringing this conflict to a peaceful resolution." 

The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The Russian and Ukrainian embassies in Washington also did not respond to a request for comment.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview released on Tuesday that Moscow cannot accept U.S. proposals to end the war in their current form because they do not address the issues the Kremlin believes started the war.

'MAXIMALIST' DEMANDS FROM PUTIN

European and American intelligence officials and analysts have long warned that Putin is unlikely to negotiate ending the war in Ukraine in good faith so long as he believes Russia is winning on the battlefield. 

After Trump took office in January, his senior advisers remained hopeful that three years of sanctions on Russia – and the prospect of either easing or tightening the economic pressure – would be enough to move Moscow closer to an agreement. 

Now several of them including Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and General Keith Kellogg, the administration’s Ukraine envoy, are raising questions about the extent to which Putin can be swayed without significant concessions from the U.S. and Europe, particularly over their military operations on the continent.

Over the past months, Washington has pressured Kyiv and moved closer to many of Moscow's foreign policy positions. But Putin has made what analysts have termed "maximalist" demands that are unlikely to be met by the U.S., Ukraine or Europe.

Those include demands that the U.S. and NATO roll back military activity in Europe, especially in countries bordering Russia, and that no peacekeepers deploy to Ukraine as part of a deal.

The senior U.S. official said that while the White House is continuing to look at tariffs and sanctions, Russia is unlikely to be moved by such economic punishments.

Trump has also expressed renewed frustration with Ukraine, accusing Zelenskiy of trying to back out of the minerals deal.

“He’s trying to back out of the rare earth deal and if he does that he’s got some problems, big, big problems,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.

Hewitt said the president views the minerals agreement as "a key part of bringing peace to Ukraine."

Another U.S. official said officials in the administration are deliberating amending some portions of the proposed deal to make it more amenable to Kyiv's economic interests.

U.S. officials have in recent days tried to broker both a ceasefire for energy infrastructure and for the Black Sea. The deals have not yet been implemented.

Despite initially agreeing to an energy ceasefire, Ukraine and Russia have continued to attack each other. And while Kyiv has said it is ready to agree to a Black Sea deal, Russian officials have said Moscow first needs restored access to certain trade markets and payment systems.

(Reporting by Erin Banco and Gram Slattery; Editing by Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis)