Did U.S.-Russia discussions on Ukraine exacerbate the situation?

The situation has seemingly deteriorated since Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump convened in Alaska last month to deliberate an end to the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia has not only intensified military offensives against Ukraine, but also deployed MiG-31 aircraft over Estonia and conducted drone operations that violated airspace over Poland and Romania — all of which are NATO members. Notably, North Atlantic alliance fighter jets intercepted 19 unarmed Russian drones over Poland last week.

However, Russia experts interpret these maneuvers not as isolated incidents but as part of Putin’s persistent strategy to evaluate NATO’s determination and drive a wedge between Europe and the United States.

“I doubt it’s coincidental that this transpired following the warm welcome Putin received in Alaska. He recognizes there’s reduced readiness from the United States to support Ukraine under the current administration compared to the previous one, and I suspect he feels encouraged by that,” remarked Mary Elise Sarotte ’88, a historian of the Cold War and Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Russia might be seeking to exploit any rift between NATO and the U.S. regarding the appropriate actions to take in response to the invasions to erode unity and ‘weaken’ NATO’s Article 5 mutual security pledge, explained Jake Sullivan, former national security advisor to President Joe Biden from January 2021 to January 2025, as well as during Biden’s vice presidency.

“Russia thrives in the gray area, in situations characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity, and this drone incursion falls squarely within that gray area,” he noted, adding that the U.S. and NATO ought to prepare for Russia to persist in employing drones and various forms of hybrid warfare in Europe and the Baltic nations unless countered.

Considering the current fragility of Russia’s economy, the U.S. and Europe find themselves in a uniquely “timely opportunity” to increase sanctions on Russian oil. This would place Putin in a precarious situation while conveying to the world that such provocations will not be tolerated, stated Sullivan, now Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order at Harvard Kennedy School.

That level of cohesive reaction seems improbable. Trump recently indicated in a social media post that the U.S. would impose significant new sanctions on Russia solely after all NATO nations cease purchasing Russian oil.

Many detractors, including Sullivan, consider that position an effort to shift the main burden of intensifying pressure on Putin away from the U.S. and onto the Europeans, given that only Slovakia, Hungary, and Turkey still import Russian oil.

Another alternative available to Europe, which it can pursue independently, would be to allocate Ukraine the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets as a sort of advance on future reparations for the conflict, Sullivan suggested.

This would be a daring move, which the Europeans have the legal authority to undertake, and would enhance Ukraine’s immediate and long-term resilience. “I believe that action will capture Putin’s attention,” stated Sullivan.

To compel Putin to negotiate a sustainable, genuine peace agreement with Ukraine, two conditions must be fulfilled.

“First, he must finally accept that he cannot realize his objectives on the battlefield — which he has not achieved yet. I am convinced that, if Ukraine shows persistence, he won’t. Thus, the U.S. should persist in collaborating with Europeans and others to support Ukraine, denying Putin any victory on the battlefield,” stated Sullivan.

“Secondly, he must acknowledge that the costs have escalated to such a level that he must engage in negotiations for a legitimate deal, not the kind he has proposed thus far.”

Putin has asserted that a primary motive for his aggression toward Ukraine was to prevent its accession to NATO. Most Western specialists on Russia are greatly skeptical of that assertion.

Nevertheless, NATO does bear some responsibility for inflating tensions in the region by stating that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members during the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, noted Sarotte, a fellow at the Belfer Center at HKS and a research affiliate at the Center for European Studies at Harvard.

“I believe the decision taken in 2008 to declare that Ukraine and Georgia would join NATO — yet taking no practical measures to realize it — effectively placed Ukraine and Georgia in the most precarious position of being targets in the interim without actual NATO support,” said Sarotte, who explored the alliance’s eastward expansion in her 2021 book, “Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate.”

Putin’s insistence on reasserting Ukraine as part of Russia is underpinned by his broader aspirations to assume the role of a significant Slavic leader, according to Sarotte.

“The reason I specify Slavic is that I don’t believe his ambition is to reassemble every last inch of the former Soviet Union,” she commented. “It predominantly concerns the overlap of regions that are core Slavic territories in his view — Belarus, Ukraine, and so forth — that he ardently wishes to control once more.”

When the conflict concludes, Sarotte anticipates that Ukraine will be akin to Germany after World War II, divided by a militarized frontier.

“I realistically think that’s the direction it’s heading. Therefore, the only factor that will dissuade him from pursuing this vision of a reconstituted Slavic Soviet Union … is likely to be force, unfortunately,” she concluded.