'Patience In Washington Has Its Limits': Expert Says Putin Must Give Trump 'Something' In Talks

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On "Forbes Newsroom" Tinatin Japaridze, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, spoke about President Trump's frustrations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Transcript

00:00Let's talk about the Russia element here, because it seems like Zelensky has been trying to shout

00:05from the rooftops, hey, Vladimir Putin does not negotiate in good faith. And it seems like

00:10President Trump could be picking up on that. This is what he said in a Truth Social post,

00:14quote, there was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas

00:18in cities and towns over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want

00:23to stop the war. He's just tapping me along. So it seems like President Trump is publicly musing,

00:28hey, is Putin taking me for a ride here? What do you think of that?

00:33Well, actually, the meeting that took place between Zelensky and Trump, it also led Trump to

00:40publicly threaten additional sanctions on Russia if his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, refused to agree

00:46to a ceasefire. So we should note here that Trump has not necessarily been consistent in following

00:52through on such threats that he has made in the past. But he appears to be visibly irritated

00:58because ultimately, he needs to get some sort of a win. Now, what that win looks like on the

01:06battlefield is not necessarily going to dictate to President Trump whether or not he's been able

01:13to get what he needs to get out of these negotiations, because he needs to show that he has delivered

01:20on his promise, if not to end the war to at least come up with some sort of a solution that results

01:28in a durable ceasefire. So not a ceasefire for two days, but something that lasts a little bit longer.

01:34Now, I'm very skeptical that this can be a long term ceasefire, because again, we are dealing with

01:40Vladimir Putin, who I don't think is going to give up on taking over Ukraine anytime soon. And I think

01:47President Trump knows this to a degree, but he may be underestimating how important essentially

01:55having full control down the line of Ukraine is important to Vladimir Putin. This is not something

02:02that Putin started thinking about last week. And it's probably something that President Trump

02:08started thinking about and worrying about relative to Vladimir Putin somewhat recently. So it's a little

02:15bit difficult for him to calibrate the importance of Ukraine in this conversation with Russia compared

02:22to how he views the importance of this ceasefire and an end to the war.

02:28I want to talk about something you said something a Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, and that is

02:33both sides need to want peace need to want a permanent ceasefire for this to work. Is there evidence

02:39you're saying no time soon that Putin that Russia wants a permanent ceasefire because he did offer

02:45that temporary ceasefire in from May 8th to May 11th? Zelensky said that's an attempt at manipulation,

02:50but it does take Russia to come to the table in a meaningful way saying, hey, I want a ceasefire

02:57too. Does that look like that's happening? Well, I do think, Brittany, that actually Vladimir Putin had to give

03:04something to President Trump, because obviously, patience in Washington has its limits. And President

03:13Trump, and not just his broader administration, but him specifically, he was starting to really lose his

03:20patience, as you alluded to this earlier in your question. And I do feel that it was very important for

03:28Vladimir Putin to at least hand something over to his US counterpart. Now, is this a solution? I don't

03:36think so. I think it's it's a bit of a stretch to even call it a bandaid. Because we have seen sadly,

03:43that Russia does not necessarily abide by its own unit unilateral temporary halts to fighting in terms of

03:51any commitments to that, that it ends up breaking very quickly, whenever it decides to do so. So in a way, the

04:00victory day related, temporary halt in fighting that President Putin announced for the for the for the for the

04:09May Day, and broadly for for the May victory day observations, I think this signals that Moscow does not

04:19anticipate a lasting ceasefire agreement anytime soon. Because if they were to think that a longer term

04:25ceasefire is around the corner, I don't think that two, three days would really be worse even discussing

04:34at this point, because they would be working towards something more durable. So I am skeptical about this

04:39announcement, I am generally skeptical about these unilateral sort of moves and, you know, commitments to

04:49to stop fighting for a couple of days, because what does that actually do? Perhaps it signals that

04:54there is some willingness to stop, but then there would really have to be a total halt in fighting. And

05:01in the prior examples, including over Easter, we have not seen that. So, you know, especially through the

05:09prism of a truce, if anything, both Russian and Ukrainian positions on the broader war, and any prospect of a

05:16peace settlement as such, continue to be unchanged. So at the core, we still have the same problem.

05:23There's massive distrust between the two sides. And as we've discussed over the past several months,

05:29when we revisit this topic, anything that is really going to signal a political settlement, a peace

05:36settlement is going to be unlikely, not just in the coming weeks. But I would argue that we really are

05:42at least months away from even seeing realistically, can there be any sort of a durable solution here?

05:50And I'm just not sure that Vladimir Putin feels any real pressure, especially bearing in mind that Russia

05:59does continue to stand pretty strong on the battlefield for them to feel like they really

06:04need to stop fighting because they have to regroup and rearm. There's just no need for them to do that.

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