There is no guarantee the US president’s impatience with Russia will last, but the Kremlin may come to regret testing his patience

Before Donald Trump was a politician he was a property tycoon. Naturally, he thought he could fix the Ukraine war with a real-estate deal. In exchange for a ceasefire, Vladimir Putin would get to keep territory he had already seized.

But before Putin was a politician he was a KGB agent who mourned the collapse of the Soviet Union. His idea of a fair solution begins with Ukraine’s total submission to an imperial Russian motherland.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist