How Russia and Ukraine are fighting to shape Trump’s view of the war
However, as Zelenskyy was returning home, President Vladimir Putin was speaking to Trump on the phone and revealed a new development. Putin claimed that a Ukrainian drone strike targeted one of his residences in Russia overnight. “I don’t like it,” Trump later told reporters, describing the call. “This is not the right time to do this. I was so angry about it.”
This accusation was exactly the type that could derail Ukraine’s diplomatic efforts. Zelenskyy quickly denied the claim on social media, calling it a “complete fabrication” that was “designed to undermine all the successes of our joint diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team.” Zelenskyy added that Ukrainian negotiators discussed the claim with their US counterparts and that the foreign minister also weighed in on the issue.
Meanwhile, several Russian officials made the accusation public and said Moscow would toughen its stance on the negotiations in response.
The statements of Ukraine and Russia regarding the claim, for which there is no definitive evidence so far, underlined an information war that has gained great importance in the peace talks: the war to shape Trump’s thinking.
Both sides in the war see Trump as their main trump card in negotiating a future peace deal. For months they tried to shape his perception of the battlefield. This includes Russia claiming that cities that have not yet been captured have been captured, and Ukraine not immediately admitting that a city has fallen. Ukraine and Russia have also accused each other of refusing to compromise to reach a peace deal and trying to disrupt the talks.
Trump’s views on the war remain unclear after nearly a year of failed efforts to end it. According to analysts, Russia has the upper hand in the struggle to shape its perception. Trump has sided with Moscow several times this year, in part because of Russia’s advantage on the battlefield; This dovetails with the president’s repeated belief that the strongest side will prevail. Zelenskyy has had to scramble to salvage diplomatic efforts by frequently contacting the US side and rallying his European allies to steer Trump towards a less pro-Russian position.
“Zelenskyy faces a challenge in appealing to Trump that Putin does not have,” said Harry Nedelcu, a senior executive at Rasmussen Global, a research firm, noting that Putin has a closer relationship with Trump than the Ukrainian president. Putin is usually able to speak to Trump shortly before Trump meets with Zelenskyy (which is what happened on Sunday) to directly assert his case and shape the negotiations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated on Tuesday that Russia would toughen its negotiating stance, without specifying how Moscow would change its demands. He told reporters that Russia would “continue the negotiation process and dialogue primarily with the Americans.”
Local authorities in Russia’s Novgorod region, where the allegedly attacked residence is located, reported a drone attack in Ukraine early Monday morning. However, the attack and its possible impact could not be independently verified, and Russian authorities have not publicly provided any evidence.
Despite this, the claim sparked news coverage in Russia and sparked a wave of backlash, with pro-state media and lawmakers calling for retaliation.
Alexander Kots, war correspondent for the pro-Kremlin newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, wrote a column reflecting the general tone, arguing that it was time to take off the gloves in confronting “this provincial Napoleon”, referring to Zelenskyy. He wrote that the response must be “decisive and devastating”, including the assassination of senior Ukrainian officials and commanders. He concluded that “the peace process is now dead.”
Wanting to refute Russia’s claim, Ukrainian officials noted that Russia made contradictory statements about the number of unmanned aerial vehicles said to have flown to Novgorod. A senior French official, speaking anonymously under government rules, supported that view, saying there was no evidence to substantiate Moscow’s accusations. However, India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates issued statements condemning the alleged attack.
Asked Monday if he had seen any intelligence reports or other evidence supporting Russia’s claim, Trump said: “Well, we’ll find out. You’re saying the attack might not have happened. I guess that’s also possible, but President Putin told me this morning that it did.”
With negotiations deadlocked over territorial issues, much of the narrative struggle in recent weeks has focused on which side is gaining ground on the battlefield.
In early December, Putin invited journalists to “see with their own eyes” Russian forces had captured the northeastern city of Kupiansk. Instead, it was Zelenskyy who arrived about 10 days later and filmed himself near the city’s entrance sign to announce that the city was mostly under Ukrainian control; this was also confirmed by battlefield maps prepared by independent groups.
Putin, who met with senior commanders in the Kremlin on Monday, said Russian troops were only 14 kilometers away from the city of Zaporizhzhia, a major industrial center in southern Ukraine. He ordered his forces to capture the city “in the near future.” But Russia has not captured any major cities since 2022, and military analysts say Russia does not have the strength to do so.
Still, Russian troops have made progress in recent weeks; This is a reality that Ukraine tries to downplay. Ukraine’s top military leaders, for example, have been slow to acknowledge that the eastern town of Siversk fell to Russia last week.
On Monday, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, issued a rather optimistic statement about the situation in Pokrovsk, a strategic city in the eastern Donetsk region, claiming that Russian forces control only half of it. But battlefield maps compiled by independent groups show about two-thirds of Pokrovsk was under Russian control, and Ukrainian soldiers on the ground acknowledged the city was almost lost.
Trying to control the narrative about advances in Donetsk is important for both sides because one of the Kremlin’s main demands for ending the war is that Ukraine cede the quarter of the territory it still controls – which is a non-starter for Ukraine.
Russia argued that its advance in the region was inevitable and that Ukraine should settle now, even if it meant giving up territory rather than losing more men trying to defend Donetsk. Trump repeated that argument after meeting with Zelenskyy on Sunday, saying Ukraine would be “better to reach an agreement than to lose on the battlefield in the coming months.”
Ukraine has tried to counter this claim by emphasizing that Russia’s advance has been slow and that it will still take months for Moscow to capture the rest of Donetsk. During a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office in August, Zelenskyy used a map of the battlefield to make his case. He said that during the 1,000 days before that meeting, Russia had managed to capture less than 1% of Ukrainian territory.
Both sides have sought to appeal to Trump’s business-oriented mindset, putting on hold potentially lucrative deals that could be part of the solution.
The peace plan drawn up with U.S. representatives last month by Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and one of Russia’s leading negotiators, included a provision for the United States to enter into long-term economic cooperation with Moscow in various sectors such as energy, artificial intelligence and mineral extraction.
Ukraine’s negotiating position includes a financial package to support the country’s post-war reconstruction and American involvement. Zelenskyy said this would include “the entry of American business, special conditions for the development and reconstruction of Ukraine, and the development of a free trade agreement with the United States.”
Welcoming Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Sunday, Trump marveled at the money that could be generated from rebuilding Ukraine. “There is so much wealth to be had,” he said.
This article was first published in The New York Times.
