U.S. President Donald Trump shakes arms with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier than a joint information convention following their assembly at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S., August 15, 2025.
Gavriil Grigorov | Via Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated he’ll punish Russia and President Vladimir Putin if Moscow does not come to the desk and comply with peace talks or a ceasefire with Ukraine.
Russia has proven no indicators of aspiring to do both, as a substitute persevering with and rising its assaults on Ukraine because it appears to consolidate features on the battlefield.
And nonetheless, Trump is holding off on releasing a giant bazooka of additional sanctions and financial punishment that might damage an already weakened Russia.
The purpose for the standstill is strategic and goes past Russia, in response to analysts, who warn the longer Trump holds off, the extra he is undermining his and the U.S.’ place.
“The Russian budget is actually under a lot of pressure… so if there were to be any more significant sanctions targeting Russian oil trade from the U.S. — which they’ve talked about but not done — that would put the budget under greater pressure. It hasn’t happened,” Chris Weafer, the chief govt of Moscow-based Macro-Advisory, advised CNBC Monday.
There had been two important components behind Trump’s reticence, Weafer stated: the president’s need to be seen as a peace-broker, and issues over pushing Russia deeper into China’s orbit.
“Trump still thinks he can bring both sides to the table, that he could broker a peace deal, and that he can take credit for moving the conflict towards peace. And bearing in mind that the announcement on the Nobel Peace Prize will come in early October, it’s a factor, because we know the character of the of the individual,” he advised CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
“The second reason … is there is a sense that if Russia is defeated, if Russia is completely isolated by the West, and there’s no way back in terms of engaging with the U.S. and Europe, then it has no choice but to go even further all-in with China, and that potentially then would strengthen China’s position.”
Bringing Russia and Beijing nearer collectively would imply that the latter had “almost unlimited” entry to power sources, industrial supplies and to the Arctic, the analyst stated, noting that this might successfully block the U.S. from Russian-controlled components of the Arctic.
It would additionally permit China better entry to Russian army know-how, corresponding to stealth submarines, and additional alternatives in house exploration.
Officials in Washington had been involved about that, Weafer famous, including, “they don’t want Russia to be essentially a more formal subsidiary of China. They want it to be more in the middle with engagement in the West. I think that’s one reason why they’re treading carefully for now.”
CNBC has contacted the White House for additional remark on its technique towards Moscow and is awaiting a response.
Ukraine, in the meantime, has watched as Trump has let self-imposed deadlines to behave towards Russia move, with Kyiv left crestfallen at perceived missed alternatives to strain Putin right into a ceasefire.
“Ukrainians had hoped that Trump’s August 8 deadline for Putin to accept a cease-fire would provide more constant air defense,” John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and the pinnacle of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, stated in evaluation in August.
Yet, they had been upset when Trump let Putin cross his August 8 deadline to finish the preventing with out penalties. “Instead, Trump focused on summitry with Putin, which has yet to yield Russian flexibility,” Herbst wrote.
“Now they are gritting their teeth and, with many of their European partners, waiting for White House officials to realize that Russia is playing them — and to take the strong measures that Trump promised if Russia continued its war on Ukraine,” he added.
China-Russia-India ties deepen
Beijing and Moscow’s leaders had been seen to be placing on a show of bonhomie on the twenty fifth Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit on Monday. The SCO is being attended by 20 overseas leaders, together with Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Against a backdrop of conflict in Ukraine, Trump’s tariffs and persevering with oil commerce, the foremost economies of China, Russia and India have deepened their financial and political ties whereas their respective relations with the West have frayed.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday urged his fellow leaders attending the summit to strengthen their cooperation, and called on them to reject what he called a “Cold War mentality.”
Meanwhile, Putin advised the SCO that his assembly with Trump in August had opened a path to discovering a technique to resolving the Ukrainian “crisis,” as he described the greater than three-year conflict. Yet he thanked Russia’s Asian allies for his or her help all through the conflict.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (entrance L) speaks with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C) and China’s President Xi Jinping in the course of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin on September 1, 2025.
Alexander Kazakov | Afp | Getty Images
“We value the efforts and propositions to solve the Ukrainian crisis of China, India and other strategic partners of ours. The mutual understanding that was reached at a recent Russia-U.S. summit in Alaska heads the same direction, I hope. It paves the way to peace in Ukraine, I hope.”
Summits just like the SCO had been creating a brand new political and socio-economic ecosystem that might substitute the “outdated” Euro-Atlantic-centered energy mannequin, Putin stated.
This new system “would take into account the interests of a maximum number of countries and would be truly balanced,” that means “a system in which one group of countries would not ensure its security at the expense of the others.”