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During a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on June 5, 2025 in the Oval Office of the White House, US President Donald Trump made several statements regarding the war between Ukraine and Russia. that he shared this analogy with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their telephone conversation the day before. "I said, 'President, you may have to keep fighting and suffering a lot,' because both sides are suffering before you separate them, before they can be separated," Trump said. "You see it in hockey, you see it in sports. The judges let them go for a couple of seconds, let them go for a while before you separate them."
Merz cautiously sidestepped Trump's assertions and, stressing that the United States and Germany agree on "how terrible this war is," while placing all the blame for the violence on Putin and stressing that Germany supports Ukraine. "We're both looking for ways to stop this as soon as possible," Merz said. "I told the president before we came in that he is the key person in the world who can really do it now by putting pressure on Russia."
D. Trump also "left the threat of sanctions on the table" - but for both Russia and Ukraine. He said he had not considered bipartisan Senate legislation that would impose harsh economic sanctions on Moscow, but said of sanctions efforts that "they will be directed by me" and not by Capitol Hill. "When I see the moment when it doesn't stop... we're going to be very, very tough," Trump said. "And this can affect both countries, to be honest. It takes two to tango."
In Donald Trump's statements, made after a meeting with Friedrich Merz and a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin (June 4, 2025), there are several unusual moments at once.
In particular, D. Trump allows for "controlled exhaustion" of the parties for the sake of potentially facilitating negotiations in the future. He publicly says: "Sometimes they are given a little time," comparing Russia and Ukraine to fighting children who do not always need to be immediately separated.
D. Trump uses a household metaphor ("as with children"), which is uncharacteristic of major geopolitical conflicts for Western leaders. In public rhetoric, D. Trump puts Ukraine and Russia on the same level, which is perceived as moral equivalence (although one country defends its territory, and the other is expanding). This simplifies the perception of the war, reduces the level of dramatization.
The signal about the possibility of putting pressure on Kyiv (even indirectly) is a new tool. D. Trump directly says that the United States can put pressure on both Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, for the first time during the war, he admits the possibility of sanctions not only against the Russian Federation, but also against Ukraine if it "disrupts the deal" or does not agree to peace.
D. Trump's approach is radically different from the traditional approach of the Democrats (and the American political mainstream in general), who usually justify interference on "high moral grounds." D. Trump, on the other hand, is a supporter of a "deal", not a "mission". The United States is ready to wait if the parties are not ready for peace, and will not intervene ahead of time. Donald Trump is sending a signal that his administration will consider the Ukrainian and Russian cases from the point of view of effectiveness, and not exclusively in the logic of "good and evil."
D. Trump's official rhetoric can cover up informal agreements with the Russian Federation and compromises in third areas (for example, sanctions against Iran, energy trade, the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, etc.). In this logic, Ukraine can be viewed not as a valuable entity in itself, but as part of a broader deal.
All this opens up new risks for Kyiv - now the West does not guarantee automatic support, and Ukraine and Russia must "mature" for a deal under the threat of sanctions or reduced aid.
In fact, through the metaphor of "letting the parties fight" so that they themselves exhaust the potential for war and are psychologically and resourcefully ready for a compromise, Donald Trump voiced the strategy of "controlled escalation." It is based on the premise that peace can only be achieved through another escalation , military or diplomatic, that will create a sense of ultimate threat on both sides and "instinctively" awaken the will to stop. This is a strategy based on shock therapy: increasing pain as a path to sobering up. This logic was used, for example, at the end of the Vietnam War or in the theory of "mutually assured destruction" during the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Donald Trump is trying not so much to stop the war as to become its director in the finale. This is especially noticeable in the reaction to his telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin on June 4. After the attack of Ukrainian drones on the airfields of strategic aviation of the Russian Federation, D. Trump did not directly condemn a possible Russian response. This was also noticed in Kiev: Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexei Merezhko said on CNN: "President Trump did not say something like: "Vladimir, stop." And that's very worrying because it can seem like it's giving the green light."
This silence is not a technical error. It reads as part of the logic of controlled escalation: to allow the strike to happen in order to then enter the game as the only one who can "stop the catastrophe". This strategy makes escalation not a problem, but a resource. In the eyes of Donald Trump, in order to appear as a "savior-peacemaker", you must first create a vacuum of control – and only then offer your hand.
This is not diplomacy as a search for justice, but as control over the outcomes. Trump does not seek a difficult compromise – he wants an outcome where the United States dictates the terms. It is important for Donald Trump to look like a person who can single-handedly "resolve" global conflicts. His motivation is political, symbolic, personal. He needs peace, but as a trophy. Unlike Biden, who relies on coalitions, Trumpe wants to show that his personal authority and style as a "tough negotiator" can lead to a quick deal. Therefore, he does not say to Putin: "stop", because he wants at some point both Putin and Zelensky to come to him themselves, as the only one who is able to stop the chaos. What it strives for is not so much the world as the status of the "creator of the world". At the same time, Ukraine becomes less independent, and Russia becomes part of a new geopolitical deal, in which its participation is necessary, but limited.
The idea of controlled escalation in order to force the parties to peace, despite its logical appeal, in the current Ukrainian-Russian context is fraught with serious cultural, psychological and strategic risks. Most likely, it will lead to the opposite effect – not to negotiations, but to total mobilization and destruction. Unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis, where rational superpowers with well-established communication channels and a clear hierarchy of decision-making participated, today's war is dominated by national traumas, irrational emotions, historical myths and cultural attitudes towards self-sacrifice.
In the cultures of both Russia and Ukraine, the "instinct of self-preservation" can be secondary to the "idea", especially when it comes to the struggle for the "higher" truth, "national dignity" or "historical mission". This distinguishes both societies from the rationalistic models of Western countries, which think in terms of "if it hurts, it will stop", where fear automatically leads to deterrence.
Therefore, the proposal to "artificially increase escalation for the sake of accelerating peace" may be perceived in the West as a rational maneuver, but in reality it can nullify the last constraints of the conflict and lead to an explosion of a destructive, irreconcilable war, in which self-preservation will give way to vindictive or sacred logic.
Betting on "fear and strike" as a path to peace may turn out to be deeply misguided in the Eastern European context.
Both Ukraine and Russia are culturally brought up on the images of unbending resistance (Kruty, I. Mazepa, UPA; Stalingrad, Victory in World War II, Afghanistan), survival in conditions of severe losses, self-sacrifice for the sake of the "nation", "memory", "land". This forms a collective readiness to go to the end, even if this "end" looks like a disaster.
In both societies – especially during the war – there is deep emotionalization, mobilization radicalization, and high levels of suffering.
In Russia, war is built into the vertical of power. Rejection of war would mean undermining the legitimacy of the regime. In Ukraine, the war has become a matter of national survival – compromise is perceived as a betrayal. Both systems are held together by the myth of "historical mission", and both societies have developed a high tolerance for costs. Both Ukraine and the Russian Federation are ready for long-term self-sacrifice, especially in the context of a "sacred" conflict. Such societies are not governed by fear alone. A strong blow may not trigger a survival instinct, but a "we have nothing to lose" effect. This is especially important to take into account in Ukraine, where the high level of traumatization, sacrifice and mobilization makes society capable of tolerating destruction for the sake of moral righteousness and sovereignty.
Deterrence strategies should take into account cultural specifics and work not through pressure, but through the reformatting of goals, meanings, myths and security architecture.
The real end of wars is not always the result of the horror of defeat, but rather the result of a rethinking of goals, a change of elites, the emergence of a new contractual framework, external support and guarantees. That is, not fear, but new meanings, new balances.
Instead of increasing escalation, it is necessary to build an architecture of diplomatic pressure based on expanding the circle of participants (the United States, the EU, China, the Vatican, Turkey, etc.), developing realistic alternatives and building a "framework of acceptability" for both sides . Peace can also be brought closer not through escalation, but through the deconstruction of myths. This requires precise work with political and social attitudes.
But an attempt to "force peace through escalation" can lead to a total transition of society to mobilization rails; to the strengthening of ultra-patriotic and revanchist sentiments; to the growth of pressure on the elites not to give up, but to respond with a blow.
D. Trump's "deal" strategy is largely based on the assumption of the rational behavior of the parties and their predictable reaction to the build-up of pressure. However, in the real conditions of military conflicts, actions may be determined not by rationality, but by mistakes, fragmented management, sudden "black swans", the influence of third countries and "irregular" actors, etc.
Decisions can be not so much rational as reactive, due to instant resonance in the media field. The psychological perception of leaders' decisions is largely formed under the pressure of information stuffing, fakes, the work of trolls, and propaganda.
The game of attrition implies that the parties will someday exhaust their resources, but this time may be much longer than the initiator expects. Ukrainian society today operates in the logic of existential struggle, not rational balance. Modeling pressure scenarios through increased fear will not work if a way out is not offered after fear. Without a clear strategy for peace, each new round of escalation simply brings closer the moment when only those who have nothing to lose will remain on both sides – and then it will be impossible to stop them.
Among other things, Trump's strategy of "letting the parties fight" for the sake of maturing towards peace as soon as possible in the Ukrainian-Russian context is turning not so much into a controlled escalation as into a controlled exhaustion of the weakest. It is fraught not only with catastrophic losses for Ukraine, but also with the destruction of the moral and legal foundations of European security, and in the future, the entire order of the post-war world.
The strategy of "controlled escalation in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war is not about neutrality, but actually about tacit consent to the "use of force by the strongest." Such a policy is extremely risky and definitely does not work in favor of Ukraine. In practice, this is not an equivalent confrontation, but a deviation from the basic principles of international law, where the aggressor gains an advantage due to superiority in resources and scale.
In the long term, such an approach not only undermines confidence in the United States as a guarantor of security, but also destabilizes the entire architecture of European and global security.
This is a dangerous precedent: if the victim of aggression is left alone against a stronger enemy, any talk of justice and international obligations is meaningless.
The Donald Trump administration's approach to the war between Russia and Ukraine increasingly demonstrates an emerging strategy of limited engagement, expressed in three key areas: military, political, and moral.
At the military level, there is a reduction in direct obligations: arms supplies are being reviewed, and sanctions mechanisms are being flexible and bilaterally directed. Politically, the United States is refusing the role of leading coordinator of coalition efforts, delegating Ukraine's problems to Europe. At the discourse level, there is a blurring of the concepts of aggression and defense: the conflict is interpreted as a "struggle between two sides," each of which is responsible for the continuation of hostilities. Such a position allows Washington to minimize foreign policy costs and maintain strategic flexibility, but at the same time weakens the collective architecture of deterrence, undermines the norms of international law, and can contribute to the institutionalization of the logic of force as a means of resolution international disputes.
If the United States really refuses to play the role of an unconditional guarantor and switches to the logic of "let them play it out themselves," this will not be an act of wise neutrality, but the launch of a scenario where the winner is not the one who is right, but the one who has more resources and fewer moral constraints.
Ukraine, finding itself "alone" with Russia, will be forced to switch to desperate, including asymmetric strategies (massive drone attacks, strikes on infrastructure, cyber operations, etc.). This will not lead to a compromise, but to a protracted war, with a new escalation of violence, destruction, casualties and the involvement of new actors. Ukraine will enter the "war to the last" mode without counting on Western allies, with the mobilization of the last internal resources.
Effect on Allies and the international security architecture. Betting on self-exhaustion and controlled escalation in a conflict between asymmetric adversaries is a path to the destruction of the moral and institutional foundations of international security. Such a strategy can give short-term tactical advantages to the initiator, but strategically it undermines the legitimacy of the very idea of world arbitration, increases mistrust and division, and sows the seed of new, possibly even more destructive conflicts in the future.
NATO allies and the EU will have to respond to this US line. This erodes the front of support for Ukraine, destabilizes domestic Ukrainian politics and pushes other countries to independent scenarios (for example, France or Poland are discussing direct military guarantees, regardless of the United States).
Risks for the future world system: the legitimization of the "right of the strong" could become a dangerous precedent for other conflicts. The world will gradually slide into a new reality of "global strategic loneliness", where allied obligations will no longer matter and everyone will basically have to rely only on themselves.
Oksana Krasovskaya, expert-analyst at the Ukrainian Institute of Politics
