For President Vladimir V. Putin, one call marked a turning point as great as the three-year war battle.
In a long call on Wednesday, President Trump sent Putin the message that he encapsulated much of how Russian leaders see the world today. Russia and the United States are two great countries that should directly negotiate and even address the fate of Ukraine. Heavyer global affairs.
Despite the first Russian miserable failure of the Ukrainian invasion in early 2022, Putin has never said that with a redrawn map of Europe and widening Russian influence, it is likely that he will still emerge from the war. It was the most obvious sign.
The call came on the same day Trump's defense secretary, Pete Hegses, declared that the United States would not support Ukrainian desire for NATO membership. It also came when the Senate confirmed Tarshi Gabbard. Tarshi Gabbard was seen as sympathetic to Putin and as the next Director of the National Intelligence Report.
Taken together, the development marked the reward for Putin's months of praise campaign, which praised Trump. Clearly, the US president believes he has the power to bring Russia's victory in Ukraine.
“Putin is playing a very smart game,” said Tatiana Stanobaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russian Eurasia Centre in Berlin. “He's invested 100% in his efforts to seduce Trump.”
In Moscow, we were led by a wave of joy, barely packed with news of the much-anticipated call. Commentators argued that the three-year US-led efforts to isolate Russia underlined the issue. They congratulated Trump's sparkling social media post after a call on “the great history of our country,” saying that the US president spoke to Putin before he was called Ukrainian President Volodimia Zelensky. .
A Russian lawmaker said Putin's call for Trump “breaking Western lockdowns.” Another said that Europeans are surely “we are scared and unable to believe their eyes” of Trump's post. The third said it was “Good News Day.”
In a sign of an explosion of optimism, Russia's major stock market index rose 5% on Thursday morning from last summer, with its abused currency, the ruble, reaching its strongest level since September.
Russian businessmen hope that a peace agreement with Trump could lead to sanctions on the dropping of their country. Beyond Ukraine, the Kremlin said Trump and Putin touched on “bilateral Russian-American relations in the economic sector.”
Not everything was happy. Some Russian cheerleaders of war complained on social media that deals with the US could sell out soldiers on the battlefield. The pro-war blog, which has over 1 million followers and two majors, cited a fighter who said Wednesday's call debate “dampens and frustrate me.”
Stanovaya and many other commentators pointed out that there is no certain chance that Putin will get everything he wants. In particular, Trump appears to be focusing on ending the fighting in Ukraine, but Putin pushes back NATO and allows Russia to regain territory of European influence with the US. I want a broader agreement.
“Donald Trump spoke in support of a rapid end to hostilities,” the Kremlin suggested that it was divergent in a summation of the call. “Vladimir Putin has mentioned on his part the need to eliminate the root cause of the conflict.”
The call sets up complex negotiations where the outline and participants are still unknown. Zelensky will attempt to advocate for American support during a meeting between Munich Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance on Friday.
Putin is likely to maintain military pressure on Ukraine while appealing to Trump's peacemaker ambitions. Analysts say what Putin is most concerned about is not how much territory he captures in Ukraine. Rather, he wants a more comprehensive deal that will keep Ukraine away from NATO, limit the size of the Ukrainian army, and reduce the presence of Western Alliances in Eastern and Central Europe.
Analysts doubt Putin agrees to stop the battle before he is guaranteed that at least some broader demands will be met.
Ilya Grashenkov, a Moscow-based Russian political analyst, said that the call with Trump has repeatedly doubled Putin in the Ukrainian war.
Russia will absorb Ukraine's huge losses and gamble, and in the end “the world's paradigm will change,” Graschenkov said in a phone interview. “The change has happened, but now it is unclear how this bet will unfold in the future.”
Ivan Nechepurenko contributed the report.
