Trump just gave Putin a 50-day license to kill in Ukraine

President Trump’s announcement on Monday morning in the White House Oval Office alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was good in that the President has finally come to realize that Russian President Vladimir Putin first “talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening.” Trump yet again said he is “not happy with President Putin at all” and that the White House gets "a lot of bulls--- thrown at us by Putin.”

Also good is that Trump confirmed a deal with NATO allies to sell them weapons and munitions to arm Ukraine. On July 8, Trump had stated, “We’re going to send some more weapons. We have to — they have to be able to defend themselves.” However, a list of the weapons and munitions was not provided during the meeting.

But Trump's announcement was not so good in that he gave Putin an additional 50 days to agree to a cease-fire deal, or else face “very severe secondary tariffs” and sanctions. Trump said the tariffs would start at about 100 percent, a stark contrast to the 500 percent tariff in the sanctions bill authored by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Russian oil imports, which targets not only Russia but also nations such as China, India, and Turkey that continue to purchase its energy resources.

Since July 4, Russia has launched relentless and unabated aerial bombardments of Ukrainian cities, with scores of ballistic missiles and 500 to 700 drones every evening specifically targeting civilians. In June alone, Russia launched over 5,438 drones. 

Ukraine can ill-afford 50 more days of days of aerial strikes and a likely ground offensive in the Sumy region. It is, in effect, giving Putin a 50-day license to continue targeting Ukrainian civilians — men, women and children alike.

Seventeen new Patriot missile batteries, while welcomed, will not stop Ukrainians from being killed and maimed by daily large-scale drone and ballistic missile attacks. While they are a necessity to interdict Russian missiles, they have no effect on Russian drones.

Nor do they have any effect on Russian ground forces staging in Russia and fighting in Ukraine, which according to Putin number 700,000, nor on the 30,000 North Korean soldiers preparing to deploy to Russia.

Although Monday’s announcement is a step in the right direction, at first glance, it seems to be more of former President Joe Biden’s overly reactive and defensive "just-enough-not-to-lose" strategy for aiding Ukraine, which already failed.

Significantly, the word "win" was not spoken during the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Rutte. Biden could not say "win" either — and two-and-a-half years into the war, he too was solely playing for the tie in Ukraine while Putin was playing to win.

Nothing has changed since 2023. As we warned Saturday, “Putin still believes he can win his war against Ukraine and he has no intention of stopping.” And as Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, stated, “He will not sacrifice his goals in Ukraine for the sake of improving relations with Trump.”

Team Trump needs a winning strategy. Defending is not winning but rather just prolonging the war.

As Gen. George Patton once put it, “Nobody ever defended anything successfully.” The second half of the quote — “there is only attack and attack and attack some more” — is what is missing in Trump’s response to Russia. If Trump really wants peace, Putin is going to need a good punch to the face first.

Absent a defining blow, Putin will never give up on conquering Ukraine. Yet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stands ready to throw that punch — just as Israel did in Iran — if greenlighted and fully equipped by NATO.

That is the only way Putin will be made to understand that he cannot win. Yet Trump, like Biden before him, appears to be playing for a tie.

Team Trump continues searching for that ever-elusive deal that Putin legitimately does not want. In doing so, the White House is effectively punting to our European NATO partners the problem of deterring and containing Russia

Meanwhile, Putin’s army last month seized control of a key lithium field in eastern Ukraine. If this gain is not reversed, it will negatively affect Trump’s much-vaunted mineral deal. The field is believed to be one of Ukraine’s most valuable lithium deposits.

Given Trump’s 50-day reprieve, Putin also has a 50-day license to steal still more Ukrainian territory and to eat into the U.S. rare earth minerals pact.

Trump, as he did again during his meeting with Rutte, often says that the war in Ukraine is not his war, but that of the Biden Administration. Maybe so, but it is now Trump’s war to win or lose. Renewing arms shipments to Ukraine through NATO cannot not be the only tool in his kit. It needs to be coupled with the proposed Senate sanctions bill and a willingness to use $5 billion in frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine. 

Why wait 50-days to deploy this one-two punch of instruments of military and economic national power now? Putin will not wait — and, most assuredly, many more innocent Ukrainian civilians will die at the hands of his military.

The time has come to stop playing for a tie and stop taking 50-day time outs. The U.S. and NATO must enable Ukraine to win this war with offensive weapons, munitions, and intelligence. Deep strikes and interdiction are essential to isolating and removing Russian forces from Ukraine. Defeating Russia’s ability to produce and deploy drones is essential as well.

No more sanctuary can be afforded to Russia by Western weapons and their munitions. Otherwise, the blitz of ballistic missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities — reminiscent of Operation Linebacker II, designed to bring North Vietnam back to the negotiation table — will continue unabated.

Let’s build on the good part of this plan and immediately revoke Putin’s 50-day license to kill. 

Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.