​Trump Falters in his Approach to Putin

Seems to endorse a discredited theory on Russia

President Donald Trump, on Truth Social and in interviews, is pushing the idea that Russia needs to hurry up and make a deal on Ukraine before Trump, taking advantage of Russia's economic problems, imposes high tariffs and other sanctions on Russia. To emphasize his own thinking about the futility of the Ukraine war, Trump says that Russia has suffered over a million casualties and Ukraine 800,000.

The body of a Russian soldier is seen near a destroyed Russian tank in the village of Storozheve in the Donetsk region on June 14. —RFE

Trump's numbers on casualties exceed even Ukraine's wild estimates of Russian losses. The "official" number pushed by Ukraine's Zelensky is Russia has suffered 812,670 casualties to date, while Ukraine has lost 43,000 dead, according to Zelensky. It is widely accepted that the ratio of wounded to dead in the Ukraine war is running 3 to 1, so following Zelensky's number, Ukraine has lost 129,000 in total.

Zelensky's Speech at the 2024 Borys Paton National Prize of Ukraine Award Ceremony on Dec. 10, 2024. (Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Official website)

Don’t believe Zelensky’s numbers, as Ukrainian casualties are higher than he says.

Both sides naturally misrepresent information on losses. The Russians do not give any numbers at all, while the Ukrainians vastly exaggerate Russian losses to reassure their own public and their NATO supporters.

The best information on Russian casualties comes from an organization called Mediazona. Mediazona is Russian independent media outlet that the Russian government has tried to shut down. It is fiercely anti-Putin. Mediazona's report on Russian "confirmed killed" between 24 February, 2022 and 18 January, 2025 is 88,726. Using the 3 to 1 ratio, that would bring total Russian casualties to 266,178, or roughly one fourth of what Trump has said.

Trump's view of the Russian economic situation likely follows what he has been told by US intelligence. He appears to think Russia's economy is near collapse which leads him to tell Putin to hurry up and make a deal or suffer the consequences.

The western press has been full of stories all of which have the same thing. Russia's economy is in free fall and in a huge crisis. This "theme" is followed up with reports that Putin is in trouble at home, has been furious with his economic advisors, and is demanding some kind of fix. Anyone running a war that is costly and where the national currency value has fallen precipitously, where interest rates are outlandish and inflation nearly out of control, would naturally be worried and alarmed. But that does not mean either Putin or his ministers are in a panic, and it does not mean that the Russian government is about to collapse.

Most of these articles plastered in Western media reports lack sources. Even where they exist, they are indirect. For example, the pro-Ukraine Daily Mail (not known for any objectivity on the issue of Ukraine) reports that Oleg Vyugin, a former deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia says that "Russia, of course, is economically interested in negotiating a diplomatic end to the conflict."

So far the best non-government report coming out of Russia was published in Foreign Affairs by Alexandra Propenenko. She is a fellow of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. She worked at Russia’s central bank until early 2022. Her argument is that "Putin is not yet desperate" and that economic pain will not turn the tide in Ukraine. She writes: "The problem for the West is timing. Political leaders want the war to end quickly. Some analysts have also suggested that in the coming months, the pressure on Russia could be so great that Putin will have to seek an off-ramp to stabilize the economy and safeguard his hold on power. But Western hopes rest on a false assumption. Russia’s economic challenges are not yet so acute that they will make a meaningful difference in the war in the near term. For at least the next year, the Kremlin should be able to keep its overheating economy from exploding into a full-blown crisis. Putin will likely still have the resources to sustain his brutal campaign in Ukraine—and perhaps the incentive to wait out the West."

Russia right now has a labor shortage and full employment. Typically an economy in trouble is characterized by people out of work, low wages or no wages, and supply shortages especially consumer goods. Russia has consumer goods, although imported ones and some domestic products (butter and eggs for example) are expensive but not in short supply. Sanctions have opened the field to China, and Chinese products are cheaper than western ones, automobiles for example. There is no doubt that the war has contributed to the labor shortage, but it is hard to tell how much. Wages are high and increasing.

Russia also is energy independent and can regulate fuel prices at home, unlike Europe. In fact, because of the sanctions imposed on Russia and the not-so-secret destruction of Russian pipelines (and the artificial decision to not renew transit agreements for pipelines through Ukraine), the European economies are in worse shape than Russia when it comes to employment and energy shortages and costs. Germany already is in a recession but Russia is not. Some think that the European currency, the Euro, is living on borrowed time. Further economic erosion in Germany and France could impact the value of the Euro.

The energy crisis in Europe could become worse if Russia decides to stop supplying gas, oil and LNG, meaning that Putin can damage Europe much more than Trump can damage Russia with new sanctions, tariffs or any other economic measure.

The flood of reports about Russia's economy and Putin's problems are part of a scenario promoted by Biden and his deep state colleagues on the mistaken belief that the US could engineer regime change in Russia. Trump seems to be endorsing that policy. Unfortunately, it is counterproductive as it only strengthens the Russian determination to finish the Ukraine war and win it. Worse still, it harms Trump's credibility with Moscow in getting a deal to end the war. Trump came to office relatively free of any relationship to the Biden deep state policy. He seemed to understand that the policy of trying to upend Moscow and Putin was counterproductive and unintelligent. His approach gave him an advantage, coming into office without any Biden foreign policy baggage, which he is now in danger of losing.

The expected phone call between Trump and Putin has not materialized and the White House and NSC has not made any arrangement with the Russians to start a dialogue. The reason why is obvious.