Is Vladimir Putin crazy like a fox, or merely crazy?

With Russia mounting continued missile attacks on Ukraine even as President Trump pushes for peace, that question is unavoidable.

Ukrainian air force officials said on Tuesday that Russia deployed 60 drones across multiple regions through the night, injuring 10 people. Kyiv’s air defences intercepted 43 of them – 35 were shot down while eight were diverted using electronic warfare systems.

What are we to make of Putin’s recent choices?

Certainly it is difficult to argue that Putin is seriously pursuing peace, after he arguably sabotaged the direct talks with Ukraine that he himself proposed by not attending them.

If anything, Putin seems far more interested in disproving President Trump’s self-aggrandizing claims that only he can broker a peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Corporate media, of course, has been only too willing to oblige Putin in advancing that particular narrative.

What has changed, however, is that Putin’s behavior is now a liability for Trump, who painted himself into a corner with laughable claims that he could end the war before he even took office, or on day one. The Russian president played along with Trump, as he has for years, because it is in Russia’s interest to have an anti-American, anti-democratic force of chaos in the Oval Office, but none of that meant that Putin was going to stop the war.

What corporate media ignores, however, is that President Trump has been the only world leader actively promoting the idea that peace between Russia and Ukraine is preferable to war.

It was President Trump who encouraged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to take Putin up on his proposal for direct talks, a proposal which came at a time when the EU was preparing to insist on further sanctions against Russia. Trump was hardly wrong when he pointed that out on Truth Social.

Ironically, Trump himself may have already crafted the most substantial blow to the Russian war effort in recent weeks. The plunge in oil prices Trump catalyzed with the Liberation Day tariff announcement at the beginning of April was equally impactful on Russia’s Urals benchmark oil blend.

Conservatively, Trump’s tariffs are responsible for depriving Russia of approximately $10/bbl of oil revenue.

What Putin may not be fully comprehending is that President Trump’s Truth Social posts reflect President Trump’s intention to make good on one of his Agenda 47 pledges to US voters.

Donald Trump wants peace between Russia and Ukraine, even as the minerals deal reached between the US and Ukraine establishes a clear US interest in Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

If Putin does not seriously pursue peace with Ukraine, where will that leave Trump, if not in a position where continued US support for Ukraine’s war effort is not merely inevitable but in many respects mandatory?

Russia’s small military gains are increasingly not enough to ward off the economic hits Russia has taken because of sanctions, a reality that has been punctuated in recent months by a dramatic drop in business confidence in Russia.

With Donald Trump as the key to whether sanctions on Russia are eased or increased, how strategic is Putin being alienating Trump by declining to seriously pursue the peace talks Trump desires?

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Is Putin Smart or Just Fooling Himself?