According to Politico columnist and Quincy Institute researcher Zakari Paikin, US President Donald Trump is seeking to resolve the Ukrainian crisis as a way to reboot relations with Russia.

Paikin notes that for three decades the liberal West operated under the illusion that its own preferred norms and principles could unilaterally shape the architecture of the global order. Now, he argues, Trump is shifting toward a revision of how major powers relate to one another. At the same time, the current political environment, in Paikin’s view, no longer allows for a simple «reset» between Washington and Moscow. He links this directly to Trump’s stance on Ukraine, saying the US president remains determined to pursue peace there despite repeated obstacles.

Paikin warns that if Moscow concludes that negotiations have finally reached a dead end, Russia will move to achieve its aims by military means alone. In such a scenario, he believes, any attempt to revive US-Russian relations would be doomed from the outset.

The commentator also argues that, during talks on the Ukrainian conflict, the European Union deliberately crossed Russia’s red lines. European politicians, he says, tried to speak from a position of strength, adopting an ideologized approach that from the very beginning ruled out any search for a mutually acceptable compromise with Moscow.