The odds are firmly against President Donald Trump ending the Russia-Ukraine war during his first 90 days back in the White House, according to a popular online betting market.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the White House via email on Tuesday.
Why It Matters
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the war in Ukraine within “24 hours.” While the self-imposed deadline came and went, the president has continued to call for a fast end to the war.
Trump initially received a significant amount of backlash for opening a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war while largely leaving Ukraine out of the loop.
Last week’s contentious meeting at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which featured Trump and Vice President JD Vance engaging in a heated argument with their guest in front of the press, and a freeze on U.S. aide to Ukraine has only intensified the criticism and doubts about peace.
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What To Know
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, significantly escalating a war between the countries that has been taking place since Putin’s forces invaded and annexed Crimea in March 2014.
While the U.S. had been strongly allied with Ukraine and provided significant military aid to the country since the 2022 invasion, relations have been icy since Trump’s return to office.
Polymarket, which was funded in part by prominent Trump backer Peter Thiel, showed Trump with a 27 percent chance of ending the Russia-Ukraine war during his “first 90 days” as of early Tuesday evening.
The odds have risen in recent days from a low of 19 percent on Sunday. However, the odds are well below a high point of 53 percent on November 7, two days after Trump won his second term.
Polymarket odds, which are based on bets by users rather than any outside factors like polling, accurately predicted that Trump would defeat former Vice President Kamala Harris last year in the presidential election.
According to Polymarket’s terms, Trump will have ended the war if the following condition is met: “An armistice, ceasefire, or negotiated settlement is announced by both Ukraine and Russia regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine at any point between the Associated Press calling the election for Donald Trump, and April 19, 2025, 11:59 PM ET.”
What People Are Saying
Trump, during a White House press conference on Monday: “The deal could be made very fast. It should not be that hard a deal to make. It could be made very fast. Now, maybe somebody doesn’t want to make a deal. And if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long.
That person will not be listened to very long. Because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal, they’ve suffered more any anyone else.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, in an opinion article published by U.S. News & World Report on Monday: “The only way to get a real peace deal would be to convince Putin that he cannot conquer any more territory. That would entail the U.S. and our European partners giving Ukraine more weapons to create a stalemate on the battlefield. Trump, however, has signaled the opposite…
Trump and his team have not proposed in public a single concession that Putin should make to end this war. Not one. Yet we are already seeing signs of Putin’s future demands: limits on the number of soldiers Ukraine can have in its army, a ban on Ukraine importing weapons and other constraints on Ukraine’s sovereignty.”
What Happens Next
It is unclear when, or if, a U.S.-brokered peace deal between Russia and Ukraine will be reached. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Trump would announce during his joint speech to Congress that a mineral rights deal between Ukraine and the U.S., which could be a key component for a deal, had been signed.
However, the White House quickly pushed back on the report, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent telling Fox News that “there is no signing planned.” A report from CBS News speculated that Trump was holding out for a “bigger, better deal.”
