Comentario The Hill, 28.05.2026 Steven K. Pifer, embajador ® y académico norteameircano (Stanford’s CISC)
Speaking in India on May 22, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested the Trump administration would step back from its bid to mediate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war: “We just, over the last few months, just sort of sensed that there wasn’t a lot of progress being made, but maybe dynamics will change. And if they do, we stand ready to play whatever constructive role we can play. If someone else would like to handle it, they should.”
President Trump’s mediation effort has failed. That should not come as a surprise. The administration has mishandled the negotiations, and Trump refuses to back his diplomacy with pressure on the recalcitrant party, the Kremlin.
Rubio correctly assessed that the negotiations have achieved little progress. Although Kyiv has shown readiness to make peace in the context of a balanced settlement — even to accept de facto Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory, which would be a terribly painful decision for Ukrainians — nothing suggests that Moscow has made any significant change in its bargaining position. It simply wants Ukraine to capitulate.
Signs that the administration’s mediation attempt would go wrong appeared early on. In February 2025, Trump stated that Ukraine could not expect to recover all its territory or join NATO. He thus embraced key Russian demands before the parties had even agreed to talk.
Trump later referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a dictator and baselessly criticized him for not striking a deal earlier. Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats joined Russia, North Korea and Iran in opposing a UN General Assembly resolution because it condemned Russia as the aggressor. All this must have delighted the Kremlin.
Trump has long claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants a settlement. In August, he said that Putin “wants to make a deal for me.” In February 2026, Trump asserted that “Russia wants to make a deal and Zelensky is going to have to get moving.” However, nothing supports the idea that the Kremlin wants a deal except on its terms.
Trump’s chief negotiator, Steven Witkoff, reflects this pro-Russia bias. He has visited Moscow eight times but has yet to travel to Kyiv. Witkoff has appeared ignorant of basic facts. In a March 2025 interview, he implied that the four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia in 2022 should be Russian because the people there spoke Russian. Many Ukrainians speak Russian. That does not mean they wish to be Russian. In fact, every single province of Ukraine voted for independence from Moscow when given a choice in 1991 — the only legitimate vote ever taken on the matter.
Witkoff has an alarming tendency to trust his Russian interlocutors. In March 2026, when Moscow denied it had provided Iran intelligence support against the U.S., he said “we can take them at their word.” Witkoff coached Putin’s foreign policy advisor on how Putin should talk to Trump in a Putin call to Trump on the eve of a key Trump-Zelensky meeting.
Witkoff developed with his Russian counterpart a 28-point peace plan in November. The White House endorsed it, but the plan went down so badly with the Ukrainians, Europeans and some Republicans that Rubio took charge. He replaced it with a more balanced 20-point plan.
All that said, the biggest reason for the mediation’s failure lies squarely with the president. In his eagerness to play nice with Putin, Trump has not supported his negotiator by using his very considerable leverage with the Russian leader. For example, Trump could tighten sanctions on a Russian economy already under duress. The administration, however, has suspended oil sanctions against Moscow. A threat to ask Congress to fund assistance for Kyiv would get Putin’s attention, but administration officials instead boast about their 2025 decision to end aid to Ukraine.
If Putin can string Trump along and avoid new sanctions, what incentive does he have to negotiate seriously? This would seem obvious, but apparently not in the White House.
A pause in, or end to, U.S. mediation will cost Kyiv little, if anything. That effort has made no apparent progress on issues of interest to the Ukrainian side. And an end would presumably mean that U.S. officials would no longer press Ukraine to make one-sided concessions, such as the absurd demand that Ukraine hand over to Russia territory that the Russian military does not even occupy.
The war will continue, as Putin still seems to believe he can achieve his goals on the battlefield. However, in the past few months, the Ukrainians have done much to disabuse him of that notion. Russia’s spring offensive has made little headway, while the Ukrainian military has liberated some territory, and Ukrainian drones wreak havoc on Russian oil refineries and oil terminals.
At some point, the Kremlin may seek a genuine settlement. A mediator could then prove useful. But it need not be an American. Europeans have long wanted a seat at the negotiating table, and Europe has a more direct stake than the U.S. in the outcome of any settlement. Europeans almost certainly would provide a less-biased mediation effort. For starters, Europe would send its chief negotiator to Kyiv as well as Moscow.
