Donald Trump may finally be realising Vladimir Putin has been playing games with him and has no interest in peace in Ukraine, one expert has claimed.

Russia launched a full scale invasion of the country on February 24 2022, sparking an international crisis and threatening to capture Kyiv in the opening days of the war. Ukraine, with strong backing from European allies and the US eventually halted the Kremlin forces’ advance and managed to launch its own counter-offensive – even seizing a small piece of Russian land in return.

But since then the war has ground on well with front lines ebbing and flowing well past its three-year anniversary, with both sides suffering economically as well as sustaining brutal casualties.

Recent attempts to end the war have pivoted from promising to dead-in-the water on a regular basis, often hingeing on Donald Trump‘s involvement.

Professor Anthony Glees, security expert from the University of Buckingham, told the Express that in the wake of the latest planned peace talks in Budapest falling apart the President of the United States might finally be realising that Vladimir Putin has been running a long game on the Western world the entire time.

Prof Glees said:” There’s no doubt in my mind that Trump has been dragged screaming and kicking to the realisation that Putin is determined to be given what he can call a victory over Ukraine, no ‘ifs’ no ‘buts’; that he’ll not only take the 20 per cent he’s grabbed after four years but will come back for more later.

“But equally Putin continues to exert a strange suggestive power over Trump and I’m not holding my breath. He’s convinced Trump that Ukraine will ultimately lose – and Trump does not like losers.”

The Kremlin chief, who originally planned to capture Kyiv in a matter of days, has already met Trump face-to-face once in Alaska this year, but visibly cooled on the planned peace talks when it became clear the American side intended to force through a ceasefire on the frontlines before any further negotiations could take place.

Prof Glees went on:” For almost four years the brave Ukrainians have been resisting Putin’s war of aggression designed to steal their country from them. “The truth is that Putin cannot take Ukraine by force any time soon, probably never. Even the Russians accept that they’ve thrown just about everything at Ukraine but the frontline has not moved this year despite Iranian drones, and North Korean crack troops. Russia has lost north of one million soldiers.”

So what can Europe and the wider world do to help pile the pressure on Russia to come back to the table? Prof Glees believes the answer is simple.

“What European NATO members need to do is tell Trump they will never give in to Putin because they cannot afford to give in and that it will be Russia who’s the loser,” he says. “Backed up by new weapons and by determined resolve to shoot Russia out of NATO skies if it dares intrude again, that line could finally sway Trump into seeing he needs Europe as much as Europe needs him and that he cannot ever trust the con-artist in the Kremlin.”