In August 2025, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump met in Alaska to discuss peace in Ukraine. Today their relationship has deteriorated.Image: keystone
interview
What does a deal between Iran and the US mean for the Ukraine war? And how useful is US President Donald Trump for Russia? Russia expert Hanna Notte provides answers.
June 18, 2026, 04:54June 18, 2026, 04:54
Peace negotiations between the USA and Iran are scheduled to take place in Switzerland this Friday. Would a deal affect the future course of the Ukraine war?
Hanna Notte: I have my doubts about whether an Iran deal can hold because there are currently far too many questions unanswered, especially regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But even if a deal were to be reached, I’m not sure whether Trump currently has the time to deal with the Ukraine issue or whether he can push the sides into a deal.
For what reason?
On the one hand, the situation is different today than it was a year ago. Europe and Ukraine have emancipated themselves from the USA to a certain extent. Therefore, Trump will not be able to simply force Ukraine to make concessions. On the other hand, there is the question of Trump’s appetite for hard mediation work: he has now also understood that the Ukraine war is much more complex than it could be ended in 24 hours. It is rather unrealistic that Trump can achieve a peace agreement – i.e. the foreign policy success he is hoping for – before the mid-term elections in November in the USA.
To person
Hanna Notte is a political scientist specializing in Russian foreign and security policy. She studied international relations at the University of Oxford and social and political science at the University of Cambridge. She directs the Eurasia program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a US think tank specializing in nuclear arms control. She is also a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Kennan Institute. She regularly publishes her analyzes of the geopolitical situation in Russia, Ukraine and the Middle East as guest articles in publications such as the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times and Zeit. Her book “We Shall Outlast Them: Putin’s Global Campaign To Defeat the West” will be published in August.
Image: zvg/ Debora Mittelstaedt
The Ukrainian War has been going on longer than the First World War. How would you summarize the war events of the last four years up until today?
The tide on the battlefield has turned several times in the last four years. We are now in a phase in which Ukraine is using drones to attack cities, airports, oil refineries and other strategic targets in Russia. The use of drones has also led to the creation of a so-called “death zone” at the front. Offensive advances are difficult.
That means: is the war stuck militarily?
Yes, that sums it up very well.
And how do you plan to get out of this stalemate?
Putin is still hoping to win in a long-running showdown. Simply because of its resources. So far he has refrained from calling for further mass mobilization. But one cannot rule out that he would do so if the military situation required it.
How does the Russian population perceive the situation in the fifth year of the war?
Russians are now more directly affected by the war. The ongoing economic crisis and high inflation are causing dissatisfaction among the population. With the Ukrainian attacks deep into the Russian hinterland, it is harder to sell the story of a “special military operation.” However, there is still no significant opposition. Nevertheless, it is interesting that voices are now being raised even within the Russian elite that are questioning whether Russia can still achieve its war goals through military means.
And can Russia still do that?
Putin’s war aim is to control the fate of Ukraine. In my opinion, he cannot achieve this militarily today, no. However, analyzing Putin’s intentions is difficult: no one knows what information he uses to make his decisions. Does he really believe that Russia is advancing on all fronts, as he recently announced in St. Petersburg? Does he trust the embellished information his advisors pass on to him? Or is he aware of the actual situation at the front? All we know is that Putin is currently showing no signs of being open to serious talks about a ceasefire, let alone peace. Especially not as long as Russia does not yet control the entire Donbass.
Why is controlling Donbass strategically important?
In my view, how much territory Russia directly controls is secondary. Nevertheless, the Donbass is important: Russia has already accepted over a million dead and wounded in this war and has something to show for it domestically. If Putin were to agree to a ceasefire without controlling Donbass, he might find himself in trouble at home. For Ukraine, on the other hand, there is no question of voluntarily giving up this territory so that peace talks could possibly take place. So we remain in this stalemate for now.
Theoretically, Putin could also rely on escalation.
Yes. Russia could increase its attacks on Ukraine, i.e. escalate the war vertically. But Russia doesn’t have any really good options here. The aim would be to wear down the Ukrainians with increased ballistic missile attacks – but it could have exactly the opposite effect and only strengthen their willingness to resist. And the use of nuclear weapons would risk breaking relations with China, India and important partners in the global south. That would endanger the entire Russian economy and thus also the war economy.
At the G7 summit on Tuesday, the USA and other G7 states decided that they would like to impose even stronger sanctions on Russia in the oil and gas sector. Is that enough?
In principle, the West is already doing a lot to harm the Russian economy. The EU has just passed its 21st sanctions package. But this also shows that the sanctions have to be adjusted again and again because Russia constantly finds loopholes. The Russian Shadow Fleet is the perfect example of this. It can still act, even if European states try to restrict Russian imports and exports. If Putin is really playing for time because he believes he has the longer stamina politically, economically and militarily, we too have to be patient when it comes to readjusting the sanctions. We saw that this strategy can be successful last year, when Russian revenue from oil sales fell by almost 25 percent.
Europe supports Ukraine with ammunition, tanks and missiles. At the G7 summit, Ukraine’s heads of state and government also promised further arms deliveries for air defense. Wouldn’t it be conceivable that Russia would change its strategy and attack European allies?
Yes, it cannot be ruled out that Russia will expand the war geographically and, for example, specifically attack the defense industry in European NATO states. Putin has been warning about this for a long time. But this type of direct escalation would involve high risks for Russia.
With what risks?
That NATO reacts unitedly to such an alliance situation. With Donald Trump’s second election as US President, trust in NATO’s cohesion has decreased. In principle, Putin must still assume that the USA will support the NATO states in case of doubt.
Donald Trump was long considered a friend of Putin. How has their relationship changed since his election?
Just a year ago, Trump adopted the Russian narrative that Ukraine was partly to blame for the war. That made Putin optimistic. He hoped that Trump could persuade Ukraine to make territorial concessions in peace negotiations, i.e. giving up Donbass. Trump’s rather dubious attempts at mediation last year did not bring any real progress. A year ago, Putin also hoped that Trump would weaken Ukraine by reducing military support. However, the effect of this was that Europe armed itself and gave more support to Ukraine. And then the Iran War broke out.
What influence does the Iran war have on the relationship between Putin and Trump?
Trump’s focus was and still is on Iran. It is usually said that a distracted US foreign policy benefits Russia. In this case, the Iran war has brought advantages for Russia, but also some disadvantages.
Which would those be?
The first advantage: Because of the Iran war, oil prices rose and Trump relaxed energy sanctions against Russia, which in combination improved the Russian budget – although not so massively that one could call it a game changer. The second advantage: Patriot stocks are running low on the Ukrainian side because US allies are using this ammunition in large numbers in the Gulf. Ukraine will continue to feel this shortage in the coming months if Russia intensifies its ballistic missile attacks.
And what disadvantages did the Iran war bring for Russia?
On the one hand, Ukraine has now built up enormous expertise in the field of drone defense. After the outbreak of the Iran War, the Gulf states therefore entered into new partnerships with Ukraine in order to benefit from this expertise. Of course, Russia, which maintains close relations with the Gulf states, does not like this. The second disadvantage, as I said, is that Trump is distracted by the Iran war. Russia probably cannot win the war militarily, but only at the negotiating table. And for the latter to succeed, Putin needs the United States to be willing to put pressure on Ukraine. However, this pressure has completely disappeared in the last few months.
So is the most likely scenario currently that the conflict will freeze?
At some point, yes. If the level of wear and tear on both sides is high enough, we could see a freeze, a ceasefire – but not necessarily a fully comprehensive and sustainable peace agreement. I believe that this is the most realistic scenario that we in Europe must prepare for and prepare for in terms of security policy in the long term, for the next few decades or at least as long as Vladimir Putin is in power.