Updated at 11:47 a.m. ET on July 15, 2025<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump is finally taking the fight to Vladimir Putin. Sort of. For now.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s deference to Russia\u2019s authoritarian leader has been one of the most enduring geopolitical subplots of the past decade. But his frustration with Putin has grown. Last week, the president said the United States was taking \u201ca lot of bullshit\u201d from Putin. Today, he authorized a significant shipment of U.S. defensive weapons to Ukraine via NATO and threatened Russia with new tariffs if the war does not end in 50 days.<\/p>\n
The change, though, is not reflective of Trump adopting a new strategic worldview, two White House officials and two outside advisers to the president told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Trump did not develop a new fondness for Ukraine or its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. He did not abruptly become a believer in the traditional transatlantic alliances prized by his predecessors as a counterweight to Moscow. Rather, Trump got insulted.<\/p>\n
By ignoring Trump\u2019s pleas to end the war and instead ratcheting up the fighting, Putin has made Trump look like the junior partner in the relationship. The Russian leader has \u201creally overplayed his hand,\u201d one of the officials told me. \u201cThe president has given him chance after chance, but enough is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump came into office believing that he could deliver a lasting truce between Ukraine and Russia within 24 hours, banking on his relationship with Putin, which he considered good. For months, he largely sided with Moscow in its war against Ukraine, absolving Russia for having started the conflict and threatening to abandon Kyiv as it mounted a desperate defense. He upbraided Zelensky in the Oval Office in February and briefly stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine. He believed that he could, in addition to working with his Russian counterpart to end the war, reset relations and forge new economic ties between the two countries. He even envisioned a grand summit<\/a> to announce a peace deal.<\/p>\n But Putin rejected repeated American calls to stop his attacks. Russia\u2019s talks with Trump\u2019s emissary, Steve Witkoff, went nowhere. Trump pulled back<\/a> diplomatic efforts. In recent weeks, Trump has grown angrier with Putin and ended a brief pause by the Pentagon in sending weapons to Ukraine. Zelensky, meanwhile, has worked on repairing his relationship with Trump and agreed to a U.S. cease-fire proposal. In Trump\u2019s own words, Putin began \u201ctapping him along\u201d by spurning that same deal while unleashing some of the biggest bombardments of the war. Trump and Putin have spoken a half dozen times in the past six months, and Trump has grown steadily more frustrated, the four people told me. He told advisers this spring that he was beginning to think Putin didn\u2019t want the war to end, an assessment that U.S. intelligence agencies reached more than a year ago.<\/p>\n