Why is Trump trying to excuse Russia’s latest massacre?

For a showman given to overarching high-wire performances in every theatre at home and abroad, Donald Trump’s recent criticisms of Russia have been distinctly mumbled – showing he doesn’t have the courage of his lack of conviction.

In his latest utterance, he appeared to be speaking on behalf of the Kremlin for the killing of 34 people, including two children, in a double missile strike on Sumy city, on Ukraine’s northern border with Russia.

“I was told they made a mistake,” he said.

One can only guess whether he made this claim after talking with Vladimir Putin’s officials. It seems more likely that he came up with the line to avoid further global condemnation of Russia for another war crime.

“But I think it’s a horrible thing," the US president added, after the Palm Sunday attacks using Iskander missiles fired from Russia into the centre of the provincial capital.

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His response to the killing and bombing since the US/Ukraine-agreed ceasefire was proposed a month ago has been, safe to say, mixed. He was silent over the death of 20 people in Kryvyi Rih a week ago.

He did hint at mild frustration last Saturday when he told reporters that talks brokered by the US with Russia and Ukraine were getting to the point where the two sides would have to “put up or shut up”.

The day before he said that they should “get moving”.

And some weeks ago, Trump went as far as to suggest that he might even impose extra sanctions on nations still importing Russian oil and other commodities if Russia continued to ignore his attempts to get a ceasefire in Ukraine.

However, one should not be misled by this performative “frustration”.

Since then, Russia’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev has been feted in Washington just as Trump unleashed his disastrous wave of tariffs on the rest of the world.

Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s envoy and chief of Moscow’s government investments, then met Steve Witkoff last Friday in St Petersburg, where Putin was once mayor.

After the Sumy atrocities, Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said he hoped that Trump would be able to see that Putin was “mocking their goodwill”.

Sikorski was trying to goad Trump into taking a moral stand against Russia after the US president took Moscow’s side in negotiations and the Kremlin’s bogus interpretations of the Ukraine war.

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“Ukraine unconditionally agreed to a ceasefire over a month ago. The heinous attacks on Kryvyi Rih and Sumy is Russia’s mocking answer,” Sikorski said on arrival at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday.

“I hope that President Trump and the US administration see that the leader of Russia is mocking their goodwill and I hope the right decisions are taken.”

He may be hoping in vain. Just as Volodymyr Zelensky’s pleas for a visit by Trump to see the horrors of Russia’s invasion for himself will be in vain.

Ukraine has agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire in attacks on energy infrastructure and in the Black Sea but Russia has so far refused to observe it.

On Monday, Russia said its energy infrastructure had been attacked eight times overnight and that it had shot down 52 Ukrainian drones. Ukraine said Russia had fired at least 62 drones into its territory the day after the Sumy missiles.

European foreign ministers gathering in Luxembourg are clearer than ever that they need to get their countries to step into the gap that America’s president is leaving open for Russia in Ukraine.

There is also a widening understanding that while Ukraine is suffering deeply, it is not losing and that it could actually win a war against Russia if it can hold on for a year or so.

There is a forlorn hope that, as Putin ignores Trump’s ceasefire efforts and appears to humiliate his envoy to Russia, the US president may lose patience and turn his wrath on the Kremlin.

But this ignores the pattern of his behaviour which has been to back Russia against Ukraine – no matter what.

Trump has agreed with Putin’s claim that Russia invaded Ukraine because of Kyiv’s intent to join Nato. This is nonsense. Russia invaded Ukraine before it tried to join Nato and Putin himself wrote of his intention to recolonise the country in a return to a Soviet-era “unity”.

Trump has backed Russia’s claims to hold onto, at the very least, the territory it has already captured, ruled out US troops supporting even a peace deal in the future, turned the intelligence-sharing spigot off and on again with Ukraine, and used military aid as a lever to force Ukraine into ceasefire talks.

The ceasefire talks have been driven by Trump and most favour Russia – not Ukraine.

He has shown no interest in Ukraine’s democratic future but has displayed a Putinesque passion for the nation’s mineral resources which he hopes to harness for profit and back-pay for America’s past support for Kyiv.

Trump has also served Russia’s interests by destabilising his own country’s constitutional structures, eviscerating its military and intelligence services, scuppering its relations with its closest allies, and tearing up 80 years of post-war security doctrine – oh, and threatening to invade Panama and Greenland.

Trump wants to see a Ukrainian ceasefire because Russia needs it to rebuild its forces, rearm, and return to the fight.

Small wonder he can’t bring himself to even murmur a condemnation for the murder of children.