Fake Thaw: Kremlin Warms to Trump but Still Rejects Peace Talks

The change in U.S. leadership has sparked diplomatic activity, with Ukraine and Russia discussing a partial or full ceasefire under U.S. mediation. However, data suggests that despite the noticeably more favourable rhetoric from Russian officials toward Trump, Russian bloggers and military correspondents remain consistently opposed to the idea of ending the war through negotiations, with negative sentiments toward peace talks appearing 10 times more frequently than support. In fact, positive assessments of negotiations often serve as yet another tool to amplify anti-Ukrainian and pro-war rhetoric.

Russia’s Growing Optimism Toward Trump and the U.S.

Russia’s official rhetoric toward the United States and its president has undergone a noticeable shift, evident across various sources of information. While Russian politicians were initially cautious in their remarks about the new administration – aware of Trump’s reputation for frequently shifting positions—the tone began to change in late January. To examine this transformation, we analyzed statements from high-ranking Russian officials such as Vladimir Putin, Sergei Lavrov, Maria Zakharova, or Vasily Nebenzya from the beginning of the year to mid-March (136 unique statements).

A data-driven perspective highlights just how radical this shift has been: by mid-February, the share of positive statements by Russian officials about the U.S. had reached 60% for the first time, compared to just 20% at the beginning of the year. This surge coincided with growing praise for Trump’s stance on the Ukraine war. On January 24, Vladimir Putin reinforced this trend, stating: “I cannot disagree with him that if he had been president, if his victory had not been stolen in 2020, perhaps the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022 would not have happened.” Such remarks signaled not only approval of Trump but also an attempt to further delegitimize the previous government in the U.S.‍

However, this newfound positivity was not entirely without complications. Between February 3–9, a brief uptick in negative statements emerged, largely driven by Trump’s controversial proposals, including the relocation of Gaza residents and his ideas about extracting rare earth metals in Ukraine. This momentary backlash underscores the conditional nature of Russia’s support – while Trump’s confrontational approach to Ukraine is welcome, any deviation from Moscow’s interests can still provoke criticism.

Share of positive statements by Russian officials about the U.S. had reached 60% by mid-February

Tone of media publications towards USA

Persistent Hostility Toward the EU and NATO

While the Kremlin’s rhetoric toward the U.S. and Trump has softened, its stance on Europe and NATO remains as hostile as ever. The shift in tone toward Washington has not extended to Brussels – on the contrary, Russian officials continue to portray the EU as the primary force driving the war in Ukraine.

A quantitative analysis underscores this persistent negativity: of all recorded political statements, 89% carried a negative tone towards the EU, and 93% – towards NATO. Europe is repeatedly framed as the “party of war,” allegedly determined to prolong the conflict at any cost. This narrative is further reinforced by broader themes depicting the EU as a region plagued by crime, economic decline, and growing restrictions on free speech – claims designed to erode Europe’s legitimacy in the eyes of Russian and international audiences.

Even the few neutral statements about Europe do not indicate a shift toward diplomacy. Instead, they cautiously suggest that Russia would not oppose European involvement in future peace talks – though without expressing any real willingness to negotiate. This careful wording reflects Moscow’s broader strategy: keeping the door to talks nominally open while continuing to dismiss any genuine diplomatic resolution.

Another element of Kremlin’s narrative is the attempt to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the EU, contrasting of new American administration and European officials – a pure realpolitik strategy of dividing the world into zones of influence. Putin, for example, expressed surprise at Trump’s “self-control,” given the “rudeness” from European leaders. Another claim by Putin included confidence that Trump would “instill discipline” and “European elites would quickly stand at the feet of the master and would wag their tails”.

Most statements by Russian officials about EU and NATO carried a negative tone

Tone of media publications towards EU

Tone of media publications towards NATO

The Kremlin’s Reluctance Toward Peace Talks

Despite the Kremlin’s warmer rhetoric toward the U.S. and Trump’s stated efforts to end the war, there is little indication that Russia is genuinely open to peace talks with Ukraine. The shift in tone toward Washington has not translated into any meaningful reconsideration of Moscow’s military objectives.

An analysis of over 3,800 statements from top Russian pro-Kremlin and military bloggers on Telegram reveals just how firmly entrenched this stance remains. Since early 2025, only 7% of publications have expressed even minimal support for negotiations or a ceasefire – while opposition to them appears ten times more frequently. Mentions of negotiations, along with spikes in their rejection, were driven by key diplomatic events: the U.S.-Russia talks on February 19 and the U.S.-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia on March 11. 

Notably, the improved perception of the U.S. and Trump’s policies has had no measurable impact on how pro-Kremlin bloggers frame the prospect of negotiations or peace talks. When ceasefire discussions do appear, they are often framed as temporary and unrealistic—either as a tactical pause that would allow Ukraine to regroup and rearm or as a scenario inherently disadvantageous to Russia. 

Tone of media publications towards NATO

Even when negotiations are mentioned in a seemingly positive light, they are rarely presented as a genuine path to ending the war. Instead, they are primarily used as a rhetorical tool to criticise Ukraine and President Zelensky, portraying them as unwilling to engage in diplomacy. 

Important to note: while official statements maintain a more polished and diplomatic tone, pro-Kremlin bloggers effectively serve as an informal extension of state messaging. They translate these narratives into a more emotional and populist form, designed for broader domestic consumption – without the burden of maintaining diplomatic pretense.

This is why comparing official statements with the positions of Kremlin-linked and military bloggers underscores a fundamental reality: Russia does not view negotiations as a means to achieve peace, but rather as an instrument to advance its pre-established war objectives. Any optimism about a potential breakthrough remains, at best, premature and, at worst, entirely misplaced.

Methodology‍

To assess Russian public official statements towards the USA, the EU, and NATO, we collected 59641 publications from 10 popular political Telegram channels (rian_ru, mash, readovkanews, bbbreaking, RVvoenkor, SolovievLive, rt_russian, tass_agency, tsargradtv, truekpru) for the period from January 1, 2025, to March 14, 2024. ‍

For all the actors, we filtered out posts featuring the politicians and country names paired with verbs like “claim”, “state”, and “say”. To exclude quotes by target politicians, we conducted a second filtering stage featuring Russian officials’ names. Also, we removed the duplicates of the statements printed in different media. After the filtering stage, the dataset resulted in 136 statements towards the USA and American politicians, 148 towards European countries and officials, and 27 towards NATO. For European politicians, we selected Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Poland, and key EUinstitutions. 

Using the GPT-4o-mini model, we estimated the sentiment towards the politicians within Russian officials’ statements. The results of the model were corrected by manual labeling to verify the final data. 

To analyze attitudes toward ceasefires and negotiations among Russian Telegram bloggers, we collected posts from 101 popular Russian war correspondents and political bloggers between January 1, 2025, and March 14, 2025.

Filtering for posts that contained the words “negotiations” or “ceasefire” (n = 8,800), we used GPT-4o-mini to extract only those publications where the author explicitly expressed an opinion on the topic (n = 3,855). We then classified all relevant posts based on whether they supported or opposed negotiations or a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. The classifier achieved an 81% accuracy rate, and where it did misclassify, errors primarily leaned toward neutral interpretations rather than incorrectly assigning support or opposition.