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The cliché has been that the ball is now in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s court. Not any longer. Putin has responded to U.S. appeals for a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine with a strong backhand, rejecting a ceasefire in his unprovoked invasion. Now the ball is in President Trump’s court. What will he do?

On“ Face the Nation” last Sunday, Ambassador Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, said Putin and President Trump will hold a phone call this week. Witkoff said he met in Moscow with Putin for more than three hours. He called it a “positive momentum” that the two presidents will be talking to each other, but gave no indication of where that “momentum” might lead.

Witkoff declined to answer a question by host Margaret Brennan about comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron that Putin is not genuinely seeking peace. He said he didn’t know what Macron had said (easy enough to Google) and so would not comment.

On the same program, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “ It's hard to negotiate an enduring end of a war as long as they're shooting at each other, and so the president wants a ceasefire. That's what we're working on, assuming we can get that done.”

Putin has laid down heavy conditions for a ceasefire and has claimed reaching one might only give Ukraine time to re-arm.

Let’s not forget who the real villain is and it’s not Ukraine. Russia now occupies about 20 percent of that country. Given Putin’s stated goal of reclaiming all the former Soviet territories, it’s unlikely he will cede a foot to Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly bragged about the personal relationships he has with Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un and China’s Xi Jinping. In a forthcoming column for the publication Independent Arabia, Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton – a frequent critic of the president – writes: “Personal relations have a place in international affairs, as in all things, but they are not decisive factors in national-security decision-making, especially for the world’s hard men. … These authoritarians are cold-blooded and clear-eyed in knowing what their national interests are, and they pursue those interests unhesitatingly.”

In the disastrous meeting two weeks ago in the Oval Office with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said to Zelenskyy: “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now.” It would appear that Putin not only has the cards, but the entire deck and he’s the dealer. Putin is not likely to give up much, if anything, by appeals to his ego. That might work in some cases with Trump, but dictators are different. Even a cursory look at history proves the point.

The problem all along is that under former President Biden the objective was never clear. Biden provided just enough arms to Ukraine to create a stalemate with Russia, but not enough for victory. Putin apparently believed he could wait out Biden, even while thousands of his soldiers were slaughtered, thinking he might get a better deal with Trump.

After watching the film “A Complete Unknown” about the life of Bob Dylan, I was reminded of when in 1963 Dylan and Joan Baez performed a version of the Pete Seeger song“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

Where have all the soldiers gone?

Gone to graveyards every one.

When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”

That sentiment appears to be of great concern to President Trump, though his goal of a ceasefire looks remote without conceding victory to Putin. As for the Russian dictator, graveyards for his soldiers appear to be of no concern at all.

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Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I've Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America" (HumanixBooks).

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