“Know when to walk away from the table,” US President Donald Trump counselled in his 1987 book The Art of the Deal. Following repeated threats from the White House that it would step back from Ukraine peace talks unless they quickly yielded results, the US State Department has announced that America will no longer mediate discussions and that “it is now between the two parties” to make progress.

There is always the possibility that this is in fact a piece of political theatre from Trump. Presumably still dazed from the shock realisation that former KGB officer and current Russian leader Vladimir Putin might not have been acting honestly but “tapping (him) along”, the US President may feel that a dramatic storming out of the negotiating room is what’s needed to make Moscow focus. Indeed, back in 2014 Trump remarked that “the best deals you can make are the ones you walk away from…and then get them with better terms.”

If so, he will be disappointed, since the US withdrawal is far more likely to scupper hopes of peace than encourage them. In its announcement, the US State Department urged Kyiv and Moscow to “present and develop concrete ideas about how this conflict is going to end”. Yet, given earlier US intelligence assessments that Putin remains determined to hold sway over Ukraine in the long term, it is fair to say that any endgame scenarios being drawn up in the Kremlin hinge upon Moscow dominating its neighbour, and so will prove unacceptable to Kyiv.

The parties are too far apart to realistically find common ground by themselves, with their mutual intransigence already amply demonstrated. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week refused to legally recognise Russia’s occupation of Crimea, while Moscow rejected Trump’s proposed peace plan. The Kremlin is, in its own words, in no rush to reach an agreement.

For its part, having just signed the minerals deal and with US military aid on the way, Kyiv will be less likely to negotiate in the absence of any American arm-twisting. Zelensky will also be mindful of domestic pressures, which may discourage him from making the compromises necessary for a deal. Half of Ukrainians still oppose surrendering land under any circumstances, while Kyiv officials are worried that acceding to an agreement deemed unjust at home would stir up unrest in the country.

Ukrainian lawmaker Mykola Kniazhytskyi this week claimed that Zelensky’s position is made more complicated by his desire to “hold on to power at any cost and, possibly, win the [presidential] elections if they take place”. That does not make for a leader willing to risk his popularity by readily offering enough concessions that Moscow would engage, especially when that resulting agreement would bring about an end to martial law and elections that Zelensky would lose thanks to his having signed away parts of Ukraine.

It took just 100 days for Trump to lose interest, this particular deal having eluded a man who considers himself the ultimate dealmaker. Yet, with neither side truly striving for peace and without American encouragement to spur momentum, it is clear that — in the words of US Vice President JD Vance — this war is “not going to end any time soon”.

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Bethany Elliott is a writer specialising in Russia and Eastern Europe.

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