President Donald Trump is not known for being patient or forgiving with those who defy his will. In just the past few days, he has lashed out at New York Attorney General Letitia James, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé and former FBI director James B. Comey — all of whom have incurred his wrath for various reasons. Yet when it comes to dealing with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin — who continues to sabotage Trump’s showcase efforts to end the war in Ukraine — the president seems to have an endless supply of patience, goodwill and understanding.

On March 11, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to a Trump administration proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. Putin did not. He made plain that Russia’s unprovoked aggression would continue until what he viewed as the “root causes” of the conflict were addressed. This was, and is, code for granting Russia’s sweeping war aims — to include regime change in Kyiv, limitations on the size of Ukraine’s military, and full Russian control of at least four Ukrainian provinces. On March 30, Trump said he was “very angry” with Putin for stalling the negotiations and threatened to impose secondary sanctions on Russian oil exports.

Well, that was 50 days ago, and there is still no indication of any additional sanctions. Instead, on Monday, the U.S. president had a two-hour phone call with his Russian counterpart that failed to yield any appreciable progress.

Instead of announcing that Russia would implement a ceasefire, Trump announced on Truth Social that “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War.”

Russian-Ukrainian negotiations started again last week — and immediately hit a dead end. While Zelensky showed up in Turkey, Putin did not. Instead, the Russian warmonger sent a low-level delegation that berated and threatened their Ukrainian counterparts. The Post reported that the lead Russian negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, told the Ukrainians that “Russia is ready to wage war forever,” citing the Great Northern War (1700-1721), in which imperial Russia defeated Sweden after 21 years.

Given how much emphasis Trump has put on ending the Russia-Ukraine war — remember when he vowed to do it in a day? — you would think this kind of Russian intransigence would make him angry. But no. Rather than berating Putin, as he had previously berated Zelensky, Trump insisted that his fruitless Monday phone call with the Russian dictator “went very well.” “The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent,” he wrote on Truth Social. He went on to gush about the possibilities of “largescale TRADE” with Russia “when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over,” without noting that Putin’s desire to keep fighting is the only reason the bloodbath continues.

If Ukraine were to stop fighting unilaterally, it would be destroyed as a nation. If Russia were to stop fighting, the war would be over. Yet Trump never utters this obvious truth in public — nor, as far as we know, in private either. Putin is stringing Trump along, and Trump is letting him.

Behind closed doors, the Wall Street Journal reports, Trump is kvetching that ending wars is harder than it seems. (Who knew?) It would be a lot easier if he were willing to treat Putin the same way he treats everyone else who defies his will.

If Trump were serious about ending the conflict in Ukraine, he would immediately take three steps to ratchet up the pressure on Russia. He would: push European states to release at least $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to Kyiv; increase sanctions on Russia’s energy exports to cripple the Russian economy; and promise to give, or even sell, Ukraine all the munitions it needs to defend itself indefinitely. Putin would then get the message that the possibility of winning the war is slipping out of his grasp and he needs to negotiate in earnest.

But Putin still harbors hope of a battlefield victory because he is no doubt counting on Trump to discontinue U.S. aid to Ukraine. Sure, Russia has suffered some 900,000 soldiers killed and wounded — a heinous price to pay for a stalled offensive — but the Kremlin still has about 640,000 troops attacking Ukraine, and it has received invaluable aid from North Korea, Iran and China. So what is Putin’s incentive to compromise now?

That might change over the next year, assuming that Ukraine can prevent Russia’s spring offensive from gaining much ground. There is some reason for optimism on that score, largely because of the rapid growth of Ukraine’s own defense industry.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, “The value of weapons Ukraine’s defense industry can make has ballooned from $1 billion in 2022 to $35 billion over three years of war, even as Russia fires missiles at its factories.” Drones are now the main weapons systems in this conflict, and Ukraine is almost entirely self-sufficient in drone production. Last year it manufactured more than 2 million and aims to make 4.5 million this year. In all, Zelensky says, Ukraine makes 40 percent of its own front-line weapons, and it can ramp up that output with more investment from Europe.

This isn’t to say that Ukraine doesn’t need American help anymore — the U.S. role is particularly important in providing intelligence and air-defense ammunition, which keeps Ukrainian cities safe from near-nightly Russian air raids. But Ukrainians appear increasingly confident that they can survive even without a new U.S. aid package.

While Trump’s lack of success in peacemaking might not doom Ukraine, it certainly dispels the president’s pretensions to being a world-class dealmaker. In the face of Russian intransigence, he keeps violating the prime rule of successful negotiating: You must apply leverage. Putin is playing him for a fool, and Trump doesn’t even seem to realize it.

Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.