analysis

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Hamburg in 2017.

Donald Trump is famously unpredictable. Vladimir Putin is famously predictable. The American President is impatient. The Russian President is patience personified. The United States has no troops on the ground in Ukraine. Russia has nearly 700,000 troops fighting a war that has gone on for almost 1,270 days. Estimates of American deaths in the conflict vary widely but seldom surpass 100. Estimates of Russian deaths are unreliable but are probably in the range of 250,000.

Mr. Trump wants and, given his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize, needs a peace settlement. Mr. Putin may be less desperate for a settlement but, if reports of domestic economic distress and growing anti-war dissent in his nearl

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