The settlement of Donald Trump is approaching. Meanwhile, curiosity is growing about how he will try to resolve the Ukrainian crisis. For the moment, no particular details have been leaked. Some of the plans that had been teased in the press were effectively denied by the presidential transition team. The unknowns are therefore, at least at the moment, quite numerous. And that doesn’t mean that this situation isn’t exactly what the president-in-chief wants.
First of all we have the “mystery” of the alleged phone call between Trump And Vladimir Putin after the tycoon’s victory. The news was reported by Washington Post. The Russian president denied that it was held, while by the transition staff of Trump no comments arrived. Did the interview actually take place? If there wasn’t, who leaked the false news to the press? For what reason? Why Trump are you silent about this circumstance?
Another unknown concerns the decision taken by Joe Bidento allow Kiev to use Atacms missiles to strike Russian territory. Two theories are circulating about it. The first, certainly not unlikely, is that the outgoing president wanted to embarrass his successor in his attempt to put an end to the Ukrainian crisis through diplomatic channels. The second theory is that the move of Biden has been agreed with Trumpwhen the two met at the White House last week. It is true that the authorization to use the missiles was harshly criticized by various political allies of the tycoon and by his own son, Donald jr. However, it is also true that no official positions have been taken by the president in pectore and the transition team. What little was said turned out to be rather random and generic. Even in this case, therefore, it is not entirely clear how to interpret the silence of Trump.
If it is certain that the tycoon wants to try the diplomatic card, this should not lead to the belief that this implies appeasement. Diplomacy in fact has a dimension linked to dialogue, but also one connected to pressure and threat. Without neglecting that one of the primary needs of Trump is to restore that deterrence capacity that Biden has basically crippled over the last four years. It cannot therefore be ruled out that the tycoon could send further military equipment to Kiev to strengthen Washington’s negotiating position in the eyes of Moscow. In other words, the silences of Trump they could be the result of a deliberate ambiguity, aimed both at putting Russia under psychological pressure in view of the negotiations and at pushing Volodymyr Zelensky to sit at the negotiating table.
Finally, it cannot be ruled out that, in the diplomatic process, the current president in pectore aims to go beyond the sole triangulation between Washington, Kiev and Moscow. Trump you may want to play on multiple tables at the same time, to make them intersect with each other. One of the tycoon’s objectives is to renew a relationship with Russia to try to separate it from Beijing as much as possible. Moreover, despite having significantly strengthened since 2022, Sino-Russian relations are also crossed by some significant cracks: cracks that Trump it could aim to expand, perhaps leveraging India. It cannot therefore be completely ruled out that the tycoon could obtain results on the Ukrainian dossier, perhaps by exchanging pieces on another table (such as the one relating to the attempt to wedge himself into Sino-Russian relations).
Trump it has always made unpredictability the key element of its negotiation and deterrence strategy. His silence could mean that this strategy is already at work on the Ukrainian dossier.
