MICHAEL KIMMAGE is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability.

That included a Monday joint statement from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal calling Trump’s threat of ramped-up economic penalties if Russia doesn’t cut a peace deal in next 50 days “a real executive hammer to drive the parties to the negotiating table.”

“Putin will not negotiate as a loser,” one of his longtime associates tells TIME by phone from Moscow. “He knows that winners don’t get punished, and if he wins, all of this” — the sanctions, the tariffs — “will go away.”

A planned classical music concert in Italy, featuring a Russian conductor known to be an old friend and vocal supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is sparking furor after the wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny urged Italian authorities to cancel it.

President Donald Trump announced this week that the U.S. will send Patriot air-defense missiles to Ukraine and threatened new tariffs on Russia. Will Vladimir Putin back down? What should Trump's next move be? And what does the future hold for Ukraine? Newsweek contributors Daniel R. DePetris and Dan Perry debate:

Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at Harvard Belfer Center, says that President Donald Trump realizes that he needs to change course because the Russian leader has been playing him "for years."

Vladimir Putin’s conduct has prompted Donald Trump’s shift as Russia’s war effort in Ukraine has gotten only more aggressive.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he was "not done" with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a BBC interview published on Tuesday, hours after he said he was disappointed in Putin and threatened Moscow with sanctions.