Where two are fighting, the third wins. If this proverb is correct, Russia would have to be the primary beneficiary of the worsening relations between the United States and Ukraine, following the recent spat between the two nations’ leaders, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. Is Moscow going to capitalise on the situation?

By Nikola Mikovic
“Fortune can bestow on us no better gift than discord among our foes,” Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus wrote in his book Germania around 98 AD. If policymakers in Moscow were driven by the goal of Russia winning the war in Ukraine, a conflict within the Western bloc would be like a jackpot for them.

The Kremlin, however, shows no signs that it aims to achieve the initial goals of its so-called special military operation in Ukraine: demilitarisation, “denazification”, the legal status of the Russian language, and a Russian-friendly government in Kyiv. Without a general, or at least another “partial mobilisation”, Moscow cannot turn the military situation on the ground to its advantage, which is a prerequisite for achieving its political goals.

Even if the United States entirely and indefinitely halts its military aid to Ukraine, chances for the Russian Armed Forces to make significant gains on the battlefield still remain rather slim. Russia, like Ukraine, faces a manpower issue.

Over the years, Moscow has been recruiting men mostly from poorer regions of the Russian Federation, paying them thousands of dollars per month to fight in Ukraine. But it cannot continue doing that endlessly.

Given colossal losses, recruiting 30,000 soldiers a month may be enough to capture strategically insignificant villages in the Donbass. However, without a mass mobilisation, seizing large cities or defeating the Ukrainian Armed Forces is highly unlikely. The Kremlin repeatedly refuses to declare any form of mobilisation, fully aware that such a measure is highly unpopular, and that it can have a serious impact on Vladimir Putin’s reign.

Russian President, therefore, continues implementing “half-measures” in Ukraine, allegedly hoping that Trump will manage to eventually force Zelensky to end, or at least, freeze the conflict that has so far claimed at least tens of thousands of lives. In other words, the Kremlin expects its geopolitical rival, the United States, to help Putin save face in Ukraine. But is Trump willing to do that?

Reports suggest that the Trump administration has already cut military aid to Kyiv. As a result, some Ukrainian batteries operating the HIMARS rocket launchers are reportedly no longer getting coordinates for the most distant Russian targets, 40 miles away or farther.

Suppose American military advisors really monitored the Ukrainian HIMARS attacks on Russia so closely. In that case, it means that Washington directly participated in the Russian-Ukrainian war on Kyiv’s side, fully aware that there is nothing the Kremlin can do about it.

Ever since it launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has demonstrated weakness on several occasions. Even now, when pro-Kremlin propagandists expect Trump to “help” Russia by “punishing” Ukraine, the Russian leadership continues to demonstrate fragility.

Putin has entirely ceded the initiative to Trump. The outcome of the Ukraine war does not seem to depend on the Russian army's military capabilities but on the US leader’s political will.

Another problem for Moscow is that Trump can easily change his mind, and resume arms supplies to Ukraine. If Zelensky agrees to sign a minerals deal under Trump’s conditions and accepts the freeze of the conflict, the United States is expected to lift the ban on military aid on Kyiv.

Washington would kill two birds with one stone—it would “end the Ukraine war” (or at least that is how Trump would portray it to his audience) and resume arm supplies to Kyiv, allowing it to prepare for another conflict with Russia in the future. Meanwhile, the US would undoubtedly focus on other geopolitical issues, most likely Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions and China.

At this point, however, it remains unclear if Putin will accept Trump’s peace proposal. The Kremlin has repeatedly stated that it is not interested in any ceasefire, which the US leader insists on. Trump has already started pressuring Moscow, threatening to impose large-scale banking sanctions and tariffs on Russia “until a ceasefire and final settlement agreement on peace is reached.”

The problem for the American President is that his European allies do not share his views on Ukraine. Most seem determined to continue arming and finding Kyiv “as long as it takes.” European help will allow Ukraine to continue fighting.

However, without American weapons, it might lose more territory, including parts of Russia’s Kursk region that have been under Ukrainian control since August 2024. All that, however, is unlikely to have a decisive impact on the war's outcome.

One thing is for sure: Russia can achieve some - although unlikely all - of its goals in Ukraine only if what the Kremlin portrays as “the collective West " abandons the Eastern European country for whatever reason. At this point, such a scenario is not on the horizon.