Trump’s rush for a deal with Putin leaves Ukraine and Europe scrambling

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/18/politics/trump-putin-deal-ukraine-analysis/index.html

Trump wants a deal – perhaps any deal

The war often seems a distraction from what Trump really wants – the chance to sit down with Putin, one of the global strongmen he admires.

Trump is, for instance, only voicing a reality that many US and European officials have shared privately for months: that Ukraine can no longer win the war and eject Russia from all the territory it has seized.

Trump’s subordinates endlessly laud him as the world’s greatest dealmaker. But his efforts so far seem naive.

He’s conceded some of Russia’s top goals, often seems to empathize with the goals of the invasion and has turned on America’s European friends who’ve shared the cost of supporting Ukraine’s war effort. Those are the same allies who Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth says must police any peace alone.

In his most extraordinary move, Trump tried to claim half of Ukraine’s rare earth metals wealth — in a play that exploited an invaded nation’s desperate vulnerability. President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the “deal.”

Trump’s view of every geopolitical crisis as a real estate deal waiting to be clinched suggests he might embrace an agreement that lets Putin keep all of the land he’s stolen just to stop the killing.

And there’s a big risk he’s being played by Putin. The Russian leader warmed the atmosphere ahead of the Saudi talks by handing Trump victories with the release of several US prisoners, including on Monday with Kalob Byers, 28, who was arrested on drug smuggling charges last week.