WARSAW: Donald Trump promised to broker a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia within “24 hours” of returning to the White House.

Three months in and despite a brief Easter truce announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the war is still raging, with the prospect of a ceasefire more uncertain than ever.

The US president has failed to extract any major concessions from Moscow, despite repeated talks between his administration and Russian officials, and publicly accused Ukraine’s wartime leader Volodymyr Zelensky of being a “dictator”.

He has meanwhile embarked on a quest to warm ties with Putin that has alienated Kyiv and driven a wedge between Washington and Europe. Many in Russia are jubilant at the prospect of closer ties with the White House. While in Ukraine the idea of long-term peace has faded.

“Nothing is happening. In real terms, people hear sirens every day, see bombs, and people get killed,” the head of the Kyiv School of Economics, Tymofiy Mylovanov, said. “Putin is basically taking everyone for a ride,” he said.

Since Trump’s inauguration in January, US officials have held several rounds of talks with Russian and Ukrainian delegations in an attempt to reach a truce. In the meantime, Russia has kept up strikes on Ukraine unabated, killing dozens of people in ballistic missile attacks in the past two weeks alone.

Ukraine’s army has also lost its grip on territory in Russia’s western Kursk region, it’s only notable bargaining chip. “So far, there have been no changes, actually in our city it has only gotten worse,” Anna Klyshkina, a 29-year-old photographer from Ukraine’s Sumy said of Trump.

On April 13, two Russian ballistic missiles slammed into her city, killing 35 people and wounding more than 100 others in one of the deadliest attacks in months.

‘He’s a showman’

There has been little tangible progress on a ceasefire despite Trump’s push. Putin rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for an unconditional and full ceasefire put to him in March. Both sides agreed to halt strikes on energy targets, though no formal agreement was ever put in place, both accused the other of violating it and Russia said that the order had “expired”.

Moscow’s army has continued its grinding advance across the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, albeit at a slower pace than at the end of last year. It has also pushed Kyiv’s troops almost completely out of the Kursk region and advanced into the frontier areas of Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region. Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr said he always had a “negative” opinion of Trump.

“And it remains so,” the 22-year-old said, sitting on a bench in Sumy on his break. “He’s not a politician, he’s a showman,” he said. The Trump administration briefly cut military aid to Ukraine in March, dealing a major blow to Kyiv.

The decision was a stunning reversal of Joe Biden’s policy of doing “whatever it takes, as long as it takes” to support Ukraine. Trump has also repeatedly echoed Russian talking points, calling at one point for new elections to replace Zelensky, whom he falsely claimed had a “four percent approval rating”.

Tensions between the two came to head in February, when Trump berated Zelensky in a televised meeting at the Oval Office and told him he was being “disrespectful”, shocking Washington’s allies.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2025