In the Trump administration’s latest overture to the Kremlin, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly ordered a halt to offensive cyber operations against Russia—a move that has been cast as part of the president’s stated effort to get a ceasefire in Ukraine. “There will be all kinds of carrots and sticks to get this war to an end,” National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said Sunday on CNN.
The reported pause comes despite ongoing Russian cyber attacks on the United States and its traditional allies—and as President Donald Trump openly embraces Russian strongman Vladimir Putin over Volodymyr Zelensky. “He’s got to say, ‘I want to make peace,’” Trump said regarding Zelensky on Friday, shortly after he and Vice President JD Vance browbeat the Ukrainian president during a shocking Oval Office dustup. “He doesn’t have to stand there and say about ‘Putin this, Putin that,’ all negative things. He’s got to say, ‘I want to make peace. I don’t want to fight a war any longer.’” Earlier in the day, during that precedent-shattering meeting, Trump said of Zelensky: “You see the hatred he’s got for Putin. That’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.”
Zelensky has good reason to distrust and detest Putin—the Russian autocrat invaded Ukraine three years ago, after all. However, Trump has suggested Kyiv is to blame for the bloody conflict. While his administration has refused to provide security guarantees to Ukraine and has closed the door on NATO membership for the besieged democracy, the president has suggested that Russia may not need to make any concessions as part of his desired ceasefire. “It’s too early to say what’s going to happen,” Trump said last month. “Maybe Russia will give up a lot, maybe they won’t, and it’s all dependent on what is going to happen.”
That led to Friday’s Oval Office confrontation, in which Trump and Vance hectored the wartime leader for supposedly lacking gratitude for US support, casting him as an impediment to peace. “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out,” Trump told Zelensky, whom he described as a “dictator” prior to their meeting. “You don’t have the cards right now,” the US president declared.
The White House asked Zelensky to leave after the heated, televised exchange—which the administration maintains was not planned—and the fallout has persisted, reflecting a paradigm shift in Trump’s Washington away from traditional alliances.
“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday. “This largely aligns with our vision.”
Some Republicans seem to bristle at this Moscow-friendly turn in the US approach to the conflict. The Oval Office blow-up marked a “bad day for America’s foreign policy,” GOP Congressman Don Bacon told The Hill. “We should be clear that we stand for freedom.”
But many in the party seemed to back Trump, despite their previous dedication to the Ukrainian fight against Russia’s invasion. “I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelensky ever again,” Senator Lindsey Graham said after the meeting, calling for his resignation. “There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who appeared visibly uncomfortable during the meeting. He suggested Zelensky was getting in the way of the “deal maker” president. “You start to perceive that maybe Zelensky doesn’t want a peace deal,” Rubio added, parroting Trump. “He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t.”
