US President Donald Trump recently changed his tone toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggesting he has “gone crazy” and is “playing with fire.” That underscores the continuing difficulties of negotiations with the Kremlin. While the Trump administration generally advocates a realistic approach to international relations, a more pragmatic assessment of Russia’s capabilities and goals could better equip the US to achieve its stated goal of ending the war in Ukraine.
Almost three months ago, Ukraine accepted a U.S. offer of a 30-day unconditional ceasefire. So far, Russia has refused to do the same. Instead, the Kremlin continues to demand a series of preconditions. Meanwhile, Russia has stepped up its missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian civilian targets. When Trump recently backed Putin’s proposal for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian leader boycotted the subsequent talks in Istanbul, sending only a lower-level delegation.
In the Trump administration, key figures such as Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have all expressed support for a realist view of international relations. This means abandoning abstract ideological goals and focusing on tangible factors of power, such as economic size, population, geography, and military might.
The realist view is reflected in Hegseth’s assertion that returning Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders is “unrealistic.” It can also be seen in Trump’s claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has “no cards” in negotiations with Russia, a claim that seems far less certain in the wake of Ukraine’s recent successful strikes on Russian long-range bombers.
Some foreign policy realists argue that the United States should seek reconciliation with Russia, even at the expense of Ukraine. However, this approach tends to exaggerate Russia’s strengths while underestimating the importance of the Kremlin’s imperial goals and the important fact that Russia’s national security doctrine identifies the United States as its primary adversary. A more comprehensive realist analysis of Russia shows that, despite its assertiveness, Moscow’s strength is often in fact exaggerated, while its appetite for compromise is limited.
Compared to the United States, Europe, and NATO, Russia simply does not “hold the cards,” to use Trump’s phrase. Its $2 trillion economy is outside the world’s top 10, behind the United States, China, Germany, Japan, India, and others. Although Russia has weathered sanctions, the war that has dragged on since 2022 has left its economy overextended and vulnerable.
Russia’s population of 145 million is shrinking and ranks ninth in the world, well behind the United States and the collective European Union. Militarily, Russia’s large conventional forces failed to deliver in the invasion of Ukraine, suffering heavy losses. Russia’s $146 billion military budget, while significant compared to its neighbors, pales in comparison to the United States’ $968 billion in 2023, or even the collective defense spending of EU member states.
Russia remains a formidable nuclear power, and frequently reminds the international community of this fact. Since the early days of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin and other Kremlin officials have regularly made nuclear saber-rattling. But while Russia is the only nuclear power to make such threats, Putin has repeatedly failed to act when the Ukrainians crossed his red lines, and his Chinese allies have publicly warned him not to cross the nuclear threshold.
Since 2022, Russia has lost much of its energy influence and is no longer a key energy supplier to Europe. Meanwhile, the United States has strengthened its position as the world’s leading energy exporter, especially liquefied natural gas (LNG). This allows Europe to diversify away from Russia, while depriving the Kremlin of vital revenue and geopolitical influence.
In realist terms, Russia’s power is greater than that of its immediate smaller neighbors, but far inferior to that of the United States or the European Union as a whole. The countries of Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe view Putin’s ambitions through the prism of realism, informed by centuries of painful experience with Russian imperialism. They understand that Putin’s current goal of reasserting Moscow’s dominance in the former Soviet Union and Russian empire is deeply rooted in the Kremlin’s perception of Russian national interests.
President Trump must avoid falling into the same trap as his predecessors. Previous U.S. administrations, beginning with George W. Bush, sought to normalize relations with Moscow but consistently underestimated Russia’s enduring imperialist goals. In 2001, Bush famously called Putin “trustworthy” and said he could “get a feel for his soul.” Yet before the end of Bush’s second term, Putin had become increasingly hostile to the West and invaded Georgia. Then President Barack Obama attempted a “reset” with Russia, but in 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden initially took a similarly optimistic stance toward Moscow, stressing the importance of a predictable relationship with Russia. In May 2021, Biden lifted sanctions on the Kremlin’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The following month, he met Putin in Geneva for a bilateral summit that was widely seen as another concession to the Russian leader. Less than a year later, Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In retrospect, it is clear that U.S. policy toward Russia has often been shaped by the optimism of incoming administrations rather than by a sober, realistic understanding of Moscow’s long-standing ambitions. A better understanding of Russia’s goals and capabilities could have helped the Trump administration, along with European leaders, negotiate a cease-fire in Ukraine and achieve a lasting peace. Approaching the Kremlin from a position of strength, through new sanctions on Russia and continued military support for Ukraine, would have been a critical tool in securing that peace.
Agnia Grigas is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire.
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