"Would you mind if I gave a couple of thousand Tomahawks to your opposition?" does not sound to me like any serious negotiating tactic. It feels like something I would say to a misbehaving child, "Would you mind if I gave all your toys away?". Not a threat, not a veiled threat, not a consequence. The two weeks deadline that ended in (was it?) March has never loomed. Putin is going to stretch this out, waiting for Trump to wander his attention to some other topic (how many have there been since March?). My guess is that Putin will do something dramatic when he feels he can get no more time (if that is ever). Clearly he knows how to play Trump to put things off.
Meanwhile, the US military is starting be active on multiple fronts, with military activities in South America and newly revealed threats of action in Gaza, not to mention a supposed strategic focus on China. And, I believe Trump recently suggested using active regular troops in US cities. I would expect all this would hamper the focus of military planning and logistics for supporting Ukraine. I expect the Russians understand that. Plus whatever disruption the US government shutdown has on the edges of support for the troops.
I could hypothesize about this flare up of military action during the shutdown, but whatever opinions I have would be improper on this board.
Meanwhile, the US military is starting be active on multiple fronts, with military activities in South America and newly revealed threats of action in Gaza, not to mention a supposed strategic focus on China. And, I believe Trump recently suggested using active regular troops in US cities. I would expect all this would hamper the focus of military planning and logistics for supporting Ukraine. I expect the Russians understand that. Plus whatever disruption the US government shutdown has on the edges of support for the troops.
I could hypothesize about this flare up of military action during the shutdown, but whatever opinions I have would be improper on this board.