Is
Putin’s Waiting Game Working?
Trump’s
push for deals and Europe’s political fractures seem to be giving the Russian
president the opening he’s been waiting for.
I’m the
host of The World.
Published
Oct. 20, 2026Updated Oct. 21, 2026, 12:48 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/world/putin-trump-ukraine-war.html
Donald
Trump not only wants to buy diesel from Vladimir Putin — he’s suggesting
Europeans start buying energy again from Russia, too. It’s a stunning reversal:
Just a few years ago, major European countries like Germany were dangerously
dependent on Moscow for cheap energy. It was the United States that called out
that dependence.
Europe’s
governments, some of them deeply unpopular, were predictably dismayed by
Trump’s recent comments. But the continent’s ascendant and Russia-friendly far
right cheered. Today I write about why this might be less a story about a
surprise reversal of U.S. strategy and more one about Putin’s long-term
strategy paying off.
Image
At
Mar-a-Lago, Florida, in December 2025.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York
Times
Is
Putin’s Ukraine strategy finally about to pay off?
For
years, the war in Ukraine has effectively been a stalemate. The front has moved
at a crawl, and at an appalling cost.
Western
countries remained more or less united in supporting Ukraine against Russia,
until Trump returned to office early last year. Since then, American military
and financial aid to Ukraine has fallen sharply, shifting much of the burden to
Europe.
Now,
another turning point may be at hand.
Over the
weekend, following his decision to waive some U.S. sanctions and buy Russian
diesel, Trump went a step further. As
my colleagues report, he has proposed that European countries resume buying
Russian natural gas.
That idea
has been categorically ruled out in many corners of Europe. But not in all of
them. Alice Weidel, a leader of the far-right AfD party, told the German
Parliament last week that sanctions on Russia were “ruining our own economy.”
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far right, criticized the European Union for leading “an energy war
against Russia, when we haven’t got any energy.”
Putin has
long believed that his commitment to waging war on Ukraine would outlast the
commitment of Western allies to defending Ukraine.
It’s cost
him more than a million troops killed or wounded, and counting. But his
strategy might finally be paying off.
Putin’s
waiting game
When
Putin launched the full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he expected it to be a
quick war. One reason that didn’t happen was the resolve and unity of
Ukrainians to put up a fight. Another was the resolve and unity of Western
allies to help.
I spoke
with my colleague Anton Troianovski, who covered the invasion as Moscow bureau
chief and is now our global affairs correspondent. Anton told me that Putin was
taken by surprise that Western countries managed to construct a united front.
That
meant not only supplying Ukraine with weapons, money and intelligence. It also
meant weaning European countries off cheap Russian gas at a major economic cost
to Moscow, but to Europe as well. Germany, the continent’s biggest economy,
relied on Russia for more than half the gas it used before the invasion; it now
pays more for gas from other countries.
Image
An oil
refinery in Omsk, Russia.Credit...Alexey Malgavko/Reuters
The
resulting rise in energy costs, and its economic and political fallout in
Western countries, have been at the core of Putin’s strategy to drag the war
out, Anton said.
“It’s
taking far longer than Putin anticipated,” Anton told me. “But he’s always been
convinced that it’s only a matter of time until Western unity on Ukraine
splinters.”
That
explains why Putin has refused to end the war, time and time again, even as
Trump has gone out of his way to offer him concessions.
On the
campaign trail, Trump boasted that he could end the war within 24 hours. Three
weeks after returning to the White House, he had his first phone call with
Putin, followed by more promises of ending the war.
Six
months later, Trump gave Putin the red carpet treatment in Alaska and said a
cease-fire deal was close.
Then in
November, Trump promoted a 28-point peace plan widely seen as favorable to
Russia, again promising to end the war.
This
shows two things, Anton told me: how far Putin is prepared to mortgage his own
country to keep fighting this war in pursuit of his core demands — annexing
territory, disarming Ukraine and ruling out any NATO involvement there. And how
far Trump is prepared to go to give him what he wants.
The
West’s pivot?
Putin has
already gotten some of what he wants. Trump is buying Russian diesel, he’s
getting even tougher on Ukraine and he’s leaning on Europe to buy Russian gas.
At the
same time, many European governments are becoming weaker as populist parties
friendlier to Russia are getting stronger (aided by Russian
disinformation campaigns aimed at eroding trust in Western governments).
In
France, Le Pen is the front-runner in presidential elections next year. In
Germany, the pro-Russia AfD is now the most popular party. The rise of
far-right parties in Europe has its own homegrown dynamic. But, as Anton put
it, “it clearly dovetails with Putin’s efforts to splinter the Western
coalition.”
In
Washington, the splintering seems far advanced. Trump blames Ukraine’s
president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for the ongoing war (Zelensky “doesn’t want to
end this war, and probably never did,” he posted on social media Sunday) and
shrugs off Russian bombardments that are causing sharply higher civilian
casualties (“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” he said Monday).
Image
After a
Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, in July. Credit...Nicole Tung for The
New York Times
The
language matters. It points to Trump’s increased determination to force a deal
on Zelensky, my colleague David
Sanger wrote in yesterday’s newsletter, “even one written largely on
Russia’s terms.”
Which
would be the greatest vindication of all for Putin’s strategy.
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