President Donald Trump runs hot and cold in his relationship with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin — often at the same time.
Since the start of the year, the United States has captured Venezuela’s autocratic leader, called for the downfall of Iran’s ruling theocracy and targeted Russian oil trade that has helped keep the Kremlin afloat during the war with Ukraine.
Still, Trump maintains a publicly cordial relationship with Putin, has repeatedly issued statements critical of NATO and has often repeated Kremlin talking points in discussing the Ukraine war.
Those parallel tracks — pressure and courtship — may capture the Trump administration’s dual approach to Putin.
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel says Trump’s opaque intentions can be a strength in talking to Putin, who himself is known for keeping his cards close to his chest and offering mixed public messages.
“For too long, we in the West have been very predictable, and that has also been easy for someone like Vladimir Putin to then anticipate what our next moves will be,” van Weel, a former assistant secretary general at NATO, said in an interview last week. Trump’s unpredictability, he said, might “help.”
'I’m hopeful'
Even as Washington tightens the screws, it is also keeping a direct channel to the Kremlin open. This weekend, Ukrainian, American and Russian negotiators met in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, the first known talks all three sides have attended since the war began nearly four years ago.
The meeting follows renewed outreach by Trump’s circle: Russia requested a visit by special envoy Steve Witkoff, who met with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday alongside Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.
“I’m hopeful. ... We need a peace,” Witkoff told reporters ahead of the meeting.
On Monday, the Kremlin said the issue of territory remained fundamental to Russia, the state news agency Tass reported.
Putin has repeatedly said Russia will take all of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas by force unless Kyiv gives it up in a peace deal.
Kyiv has repeatedly said it will not hand over territory that Moscow has not already won on the battlefield.
Beyond Maduro
After American special forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, the Kremlin demanded their release and condemned what it said was an unacceptable attack on Venezuela’s sovereignty.
But Venezuela matters to Moscow for reasons that go far beyond Maduro.
For Putin, the relationship has been a way to show that Russia is still a global power, not just a country boxed in by Europe. And under Putin’s rule, Moscow has built deep energy and media ties in Caracas that helped it gain a rare foothold in America’s backyard.
Putin’s aim has been “to get out of this idea that Russia is just a regional power, trying to reinvigorate that kind of global or larger global reach that the Soviet Union had,” said Fiona Hill, a former senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, sanctions pushed Moscow to rely on a rapidly growing “shadow fleet” of tankers to keep its own crude oil exports going.
In recent weeks, U.S. forces have begun seizing vessels tied to that network in and around Venezuela as Washington tightens enforcement.
Iran looms
As the death toll from Iran’s crackdown on nationwide unrest rose past at least 5,000, according to activists, Trump sent what he called an “armada” to the Middle East amid hints the U.S. could go beyond sanctions on the country and is considering strikes.
Trump has been contemplating military action against Tehran after its massive crackdown on opposition to the clerical regime, which killed thousands of activists in the streets.
Trump’s plans on Iran matter to Putin because Tehran and the Kremlin have especially close ties that stretch back to the Soviet era. Iran sends drones to Russia that have been used in the war in Ukraine, while Moscow has supplied Iran with many of the weapons it has used to crush protests.
“Putin has a personal stake in ensuring that Iran does not fall,” said Nicole Grajewski, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Paris-based think tank. “It would have a major impact on Russia.”
“Iran for Russia is on its southern periphery,” she said in an interview. Putin deeply dislikes uprisings that overthrow leaders, she added.
Russian oil
Once rooted in Cold War-era defense ties, the Russia-India relationship weakened as the latter’s economy and outlook shifted West and Moscow moved closer to Beijing, New Delhi’s regional rival.
While India did not endorse Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it became a major buyer of Russian oil, which was discounted on global markets because of international sanctions.
Trump has retaliated to India’s moves with secondary sanctions and threats of steep tariffs, among them a proposed 25% levy aimed at countries buying Russian crude.
That squeezes Moscow, but it also hurts New Delhi.
“Putin probably loves the fact that Indians think of this 25% tariff as a U.S. sanction on India,” said Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. “So Russia uses this to say: ‘Look, the U.S. and Europe are not your friends. They are sanctioning you. They are not reliable.’”
Board of Peace
Trump has offered Putin possible wins on the world stage, for example with an invitation to the Board of Peace. Putin is not the only autocrat to have been invited to join the organization, which was inaugurated Thursday in the Swiss city of Davos, but he is possibly its most controversial: Britain and France cited his participation in the organization as one of the reasons for not joining last week, among other concerns.
“Putin certainly is not a person to ask any questions about peace,” Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said in an interview this week.
Aside from invading Ukraine, Putin has crushed free speech and political dissent within Russia. The West, led by the U.S., should be exerting more pressure on Russia, Valtonen said.
“I am a little bit fearful also of a future in which we try to rehabilitate Russia and Putin to the world community, especially if there were significant trade deals or the lifting of economic sanctions towards Russia, because, unfortunately, Russia’s threat doesn’t begin or it doesn’t end in Ukraine,” she said.
Asked for comment Monday, the White House directed NBC News to an earlier Trump statement about Putin’s joining the board “We want everybody. We want all nations. We want all nations where people have control, power,” he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “That way we’re not ever going to have a problem.”
But Putin himself may have mixed feelings about Trump’s apparently friendly invitation to join what has been described as an alternative to the United Nations since Russia has a permanent seat on the powerful U.N. Security Council. In contrast, the charter of the Board of Peace spells out that one person is fundamentally in charge: Trump, as chairman with a veto.
