What happens if Trump lets Putin win in Ukraine?

Donald Trump promised to put an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine within one day of taking office while on the campaign trail. It was a bold promise, but ultimately one that he didn’t keep. However, he seems to be moving on his commitment now. 

What Trump’s administration would do to help or hurt Ukraine wasn’t very clear until the President ordered his new Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg to put an end to the war in 100 days just days after Trump’s inauguration. 

Kellogg is a retired Lieutenant General and somebody who appeared like a responsible choice. However, the Trump administration's plans to end the war have become just as confusing and illogical as the other areas of his administration's other policies.  

Since the beginning of February, international news outlets have reported that Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, and Trump have spoken by phone, and others suggest Trump is ready to give Putin nearly everything he wanted from his invasion. 

The Kyiv Independent reported that following a February 12th call Trump had with Putin, the President wanted peace talks on Ukraine to begin immediately. "What followed was a stream of often contradictory statements from Trump’s team," the outlet explained. 

These statements created what The Kyiv Independent claimed was “an impression that the new U.S. administration rushed to start peace talks without a clear plan.” This was a very clear assessment of the situation as it stood going into February 17th. 

Whether or not Trump has a plan for Ukraine is unclear, but it has led some to ask what will happen if the United States under the Trump administration folds to most of Russia’s demands. What happens if Putin gets nearly everything he wants?

While it's impossible to know how the world would react to a Russian ‘win’ in Ukraine, it is possible to guess how such a capitulation would embolden other expansionist and authoritarian global leaders in the face of what could be perceived as a retreat of the US-led world order.  

In December 2024, Victor Liakh from the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council detailed his thoughts on what may result from a Russian victory in Ukraine. He noted it could “spark a new era of global insecurity."

Liakh argued that the world’s failure to address Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and proxy war in Ukraine’s Donbas region was the first crack in the international rules-based order and that this crack emboldened Putin to make even more dangerous moves. 

“This provoked an underwhelming response from the international community, which was interpreted by Moscow as an invitation to go further,” Liakh wrote. The invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a result of Western weakness, which only continued. 

Liakh claimed that continued Western weakness in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine encouraged Moscow to expand its presence in Africa and the Middle East while working to strengthen Russia’s cooperation with China, Iran, and North Korea.   

“It should now be abundantly clear that a Russian victory in Ukraine, no matter how limited, would embolden autocracies worldwide. This would ignite a chain reaction and accelerate the unraveling of global security,” Liakh argued. 

“Moreover, abandoning Ukraine would send a chilling message to all US allies. This would pave the way for a far more dangerous world where aggression is met with silence and order gives way to chaos,” Liakh continued. 

How this situation would play out in the future is another unknown, but it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that a US abandonment of Ukraine could embolden China to make a move against Taiwan or North Korea to move against South Korea. 

The ramifications of a perceived retreat of the US-led rules-based order could even see smaller authoritarian governments in South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East or any abbreviated nation with past or outstanding territorial grievances could make a move to assert its claims. 

What might happen isn’t clear. What is clear is that actions have consequences and the Trump administration may be flirting with some dangerous future consequences if Putin is allowed to achieve a victory in Ukraine, consequences that could change the world. 

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