Trump faces uneasy choices on Russia’s war as his 'compromise strategy' is failing

High-level politicians rarely admit their misjudgments. When reality starts diverging from initial expectations, it often results in defensive or aggressive rhetoric. That seems to be the case now with Donald Trump and his team when it comes to a possible resolution of the war.

It’s likely that when Trump and his allies initially spoke of a settlement based on “mutual compromises” and the idea that “neither side can achieve its political goals militarily,” they genuinely believed it. Their assumptions were based on the expectation of mutual exhaustion and a stalemate on the battlefield.

But the reality has proven quite different. Russia still believes it can achieve its maximalist goals through a strategy of grinding Ukraine down — before its own economic or social vulnerabilities force a slowdown in the war effort.

As a result, the Kremlin shows no interest in a full ceasefire and continues to push demands that amount to Ukraine’s de facto surrender, dressed up as vague calls to remove the “underlying causes of the war.”

Beyond battlefield dynamics, the very nature of this war is zero-sum — there is no realistic room for mutually acceptable compromises. That makes a swift resolution, especially through any kind of diplomatic “blitz,” increasingly unlikely —whether in Trump’s first 100 days in office or the first six months.

This means a strategic reset is likely coming for Washington. But instead of pivoting toward solid support for Ukraine—as some still hope—Trump could choose a third path: simply losing interest and offloading responsibility for Ukraine entirely onto Europe.