Call it a valiant, optimistic, perhaps even a calamitous misreading.
US President Donald Trump’s belief he could somehow, through force of personality, convince his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that he wanted a peace deal was, at best, overly generous to himself and the Kremlin head.
It was fed by the strategic hot take that Moscow is an ally-in-waiting for the United States against China, rather than – increasingly – an energy-producing vassal to Beijing.
And while this misinterpretation of the situation has cost Ukraine dearly – in terms of the public shakiness of its American support, and by providing a window in which Russia’s forces could coldly plough forward on the front lines – valuable and obvious lessons have been learned, again, by Washington.
It’s left both sides in this now global and pivotal conflict in starker relief than they have been before.
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