Over the past month or so, President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again relationship with Ukraine — from ousting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from the White House in early 2025 to promising new anti-aircraft missiles this summer — has once again turned cold. Trump lambasted Zelensky over Ukraine’s successful attack on Russian oil and gas infrastructure, calling on him to step down and granting Russia a reprieve from sanctions.
Trump also hasn’t had much success in brokering ceasefires, let alone ending the war (an “energy ceasefire” announced in early October collapsed almost immediately). However, First Lady Melania Trump did just that.
She reportedly played a (limited) role in arranging a partial ceasefire in the Ukrainian frontline city of Oreshki, which has been particularly hard hit by the war and is currently occupied by Russia.
The pause is scheduled to last through the weekend to allow food and aid to come in and civilian evacuations to take place. Although limited, it also shows that both Ukraine and Russia may be willing to come to the negotiating table.
Still, in the wake of Trump’s rapprochement with Putin, some critics worry the United States is more likely to side with Russia, or at least distance itself from Ukraine, in the war and any potential peace talks.
To analyze what the Trump family has done, how serious Trump’s concerns are about abandoning Ukraine for Putin, and what happens next, Today, explain Co-host Sean Rameswaram talks with Wall Street Journal national security reporter Alex Ward.
The following are excerpts from Sean’s conversation with Ward, edited for length and clarity. There’s more to the full podcast, listen Today, explain No matter where you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora and Spotify.
Let’s start with the most unexpected news from the war in recent days: Melania Trump brokered a ceasefire.
She might have a role. Without much coverage, I would personally say that this is probably more Pope Leo.
Melania stole Pope Leo’s truce?
I think a little bit. It seems that this ceasefire is no small matter. This is a humanitarian ceasefire in the southern Ukrainian city of Oreshki. It allows humanitarian aid to enter. Critics will say this allows the Russians to rearm and reorganize, and I think it also allows the Ukrainians to rearm and reorganize.
The question is, did it really have such a big impact on the war? No, this is a very, very small targeted ceasefire. But it’s a potential sign that a deal could be done.
Russians often say, look at Melania Trump and how important she is to all this. If I were Russian, I would be happy to say that because President Trump feels that the Russians have been very generous to my wife and my family, so I am on their side.
The Russians are elevating this, and even the White House is elevating Melania Trump’s influence, which feels very convenient. I don’t want to discredit her. I’m sure she did work on that.
When did she become a negotiator in this war?
From the beginning, she has been working to bring children abducted from Russia back to Ukraine. This is her main focus in this war.
Was she the driving force behind the ceasefire? Was she the reason this happened in the first place? This is entirely possible. There are many doubts about whether Kiev and Moscow were brought to the negotiating table and intimidated by the first lady. Again, very likely, but both Ukraine and Russia have incentives to play her part.
The ceasefire was simply downgraded to one city. How could it be?
They can only agree to this. If we look at the war on a larger scale, we see a lot of discussion about how to end the Ukraine-Russia war.
The United States last week brokered a commitment to hold trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States to end the war. You heard Ukrainian President Zelenskyy say, “We can call it a ceasefire. We can call it a stop to the killing. We can call it a freeze in the conflict.”
Putin said, ‘No, thank you. I basically want to hand over the territory I want, even though I’ve been unable to conquer it nearly five years later. It is unclear whether they will enter the room for trilateral negotiations. Even if they do, it’s probably at a lower technical level.
So, are we going to get to the point where Putin, Zelensky and Trump walk into a room, hold hands and say “the war is over”? I highly doubt it, but that’s what they’re after. You see the Trump administration, the Kremlin, and Kyiv all looking at the Oreshki ceasefire as, “Hey, this could be a model for a bigger deal.”
I want to make it clear that the Oreshki thing is important. This is really for a humanitarian ceasefire because a lot of food is not coming in and a lot of people are suffering and this might bring some relief. But there are a lot of people across Ukraine and in many of the bombed-out cities who are saying, “Hey, what about us? We’re hungry too. We don’t have certain services.”
Winter is coming and the Russians have blown up a lot of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure which will make this winter very brutal as many people will be without heating or the necessities they need to survive the freezing temperatures.
Steve Witkov called Vladimir Putin a humanitarian, which shocked many people because it is known that Vladimir Putin also started this war.
Yes, that’s like calling Freddy Krueger a manicure enthusiast. This doesn’t make much sense.
Did Vladimir Putin release the Americans he held hostage? Yes. Did he return some of the children that his government, his military, had taken away? Yes. I don’t know if this counts as humanitarian. It’s a bit like praising an arsonist for pouring a bucket of water on a house.
This not only calls him a humanitarian; it’s getting rid of Lindsey Graham sanctions Russiawhich is essentially like giving Russia billions of dollars, right?
There’s a lot of weirdness here. First, about the Graham bill, it’s a weird bill and, frankly, a pretty bad bill, even though both Democrats and Republicans love it.
What it basically calls for is tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy. Trump explained that he waived financial penalties because otherwise the Russians would not have repatriated Stephen Hubbard, there might not have been an Oreshki ceasefire, and there might not have been many other benefits.
Another argument for President Trump to lift tariffs on Russia is that it would lower the cost of diesel in the United States. Did this really happen?
Russia agreed to a diesel deal that will essentially export diesel to the United States. In President Trump’s view, this will reduce costs, because President Trump and his political allies (such as SpaceX’s Musk) say this is why the price of diesel in the United States is soaring.
However, when you talk to analysts and look at the data, the Iran war has had a greater impact on diesel prices. It’s not that the war between Russia and Ukraine didn’t happen, but the volume was much lower because there was very little Russian diesel on the US market, and the same goes for the global market.
The U.S. is not getting nothing from Russia, but it is literally nothing because it is not enough to alleviate the nationwide diesel problem and not enough to lower prices to a meaningful level. We can see that as the midterm elections approach, President Trump is actually trying to make good on his promise to lower prices, to the point where he is willing to make deals with invading countries to lower gas prices at home in the very war he is trying to end.
Many people look at these developments and think that America’s allegiance has shifted and that we may have given up on Ukraine now. Is this fair?
I don’t think we can say that for sure. President Trump has actually sided with Ukraine in some instances and even rhetorically at a UN meeting, I believe this was last year. President Trump received intelligence about Russian efforts to invade Ukraine. And then he issued a statement that basically said, ‘Come on Ukraine, come on. Russia, you kind of lost. It makes people think, “Oh, he’s on the side of Ukraine.”
Of course, the relationship improved after the Oval Office feud with Zelensky. But everyone always says, ‘Well, we know how Trump feels. He wants a big deal with Russia. He wants an economic deal with Russia. He wants to improve relations with Vladimir Putin, so he always returns to moderation, even when he flirts with Ukraine.
But under President Trump’s unique transactional style, the U.S. intelligence community is helping Ukraine fend off Russia. The United States is selling weapons to the Europeans, who then ship them to Ukraine. It is far from the level of weapons support during the Biden administration, but the level of intelligence support appears to be higher than during the Biden administration.
President Trump did not intentionally significantly impede Ukraine’s defenses. There are questions about the sudden outages in intelligence and delays in vital weapons. I’m not saying that President Trump has been a staunch defender and staunch supporter of Ukraine. But if we look at it as a whole, Ukraine is still protected by the United States.
President Trump seems unable to choose a side. He plays both. In his view, this is the best way to get both sides to the negotiating table and reach an agreement. But this is also the guy who said he could do it in 24 hours, and we’re almost two years into his presidency. The best we can get right now is, ‘Hey, maybe we can get the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Americans in the same room to have technical talks. ‘
This is nothing. And, hey, we had a ceasefire in a town in Ukraine. It’s not nothing, but it’s far from the big deal he’s looking for that could win him the Nobel Peace Prize.