Putin's Still In Charge
Today's phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump was a painful reminder that Trump is the junior partner in the Russian-American relationship and that Putin will continue his mass-murder campaign in Ukraine for as long as he can get away with it. Nothing else of substance emerged from the call. When it comes to Europe's largest armed conflict since World War II, Putin's still in charge.
Putin, exuding confidence, got out ahead of Trump just minutes after the call and talked in person to the media, which allowed him the first move in framing the discussion. (Today's Russian autocrats understand public relations far better than their dour Soviet predecessors.) Putin's quick personal readout of the call was a perfect nothingburger:
We have agreed with the president of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace accord, defining a number of positions, such as, for example, the principles of settlement, the timing of a possible peace agreement.
I speak Russian, but no translator is needed here: This is the universal language of political stalling. 'Russia will propose' means 'We'll drag our feet and then whip up an unacceptable set of talking points.' 'Ready to work on a memorandum' means 'We'll agree in principle to talk about talking about stuff.' 'Defining a number of positions' means 'We'll come up with a list of nonstarter conditions.' And 'the timing of a possible peace agreement' means 'We'll set up some unattainable schedule date for a cease-fire and then scuttle it.'
[Phillips Payson O'Brien: Heads, Ukraine loses. Tails, Russia wins.]
The official account of Putin's remarks, released later by the Russian news service TASS, was even less conciliatory, pointedly excluding the reference to agreeing with the American president. But none of it matters: Trump spent more than two hours on the phone with Putin, and he got exactly nothing.
Trump, of course, doesn't see things that way. After Putin's statements were out, the president released his own version of the call on his Truth Social platform (which, one must assume, is more authoritative than anything from the White House press office). 'Russia and Ukraine,' Trump wrote, 'will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War.' After rhapsodizing about all the money everyone could make if the two sides could end the war, Trump repeated: 'Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately.'
The problem, of course, is that nothing Putin said today could be remotely construed as 'immediately' starting anything. This is probably why Putin got out in public first; he has long experience managing Trump, and he knows that the American president loves to announce deals even when no deal exists. Putin's statement, in effect, preemptively undermined anything too positive from Trump. (The Russians also unleashed a massive drone attack against Ukraine last night, which should have been a sign that today's conversation probably wasn't going to make much progress.)
Putin, having swatted away Trump's efforts, will now continue his war, and people will continue to die. Perhaps the only positive sign today is that Trump seems to be giving up on American involvement in peace talks. That's good, but only because Putin has been using the president's personal interest in being a peacemaker to string Trump along and prevent the Americans from sending help to Kyiv or imposing more sanctions on Moscow. Trump has now said that the conditions for a cease-fire 'will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.' That's a long way from Trump's daft campaign promise that he could end the war in a day, perhaps even before taking office, but if it shakes Trump out of his fantasy that he can stop the fighting by just yammering at Putin, so much the better.
Trump's retreat could also open the door to renewed sanctions. The president doesn't like looking weak, and if Putin continues his butchery, other Republicans may be able to press Trump to react. In the best outcome, they might even prevail on Trump to help Ukraine with more weapons, but that seems unlikely; Trump has made America functionally an ally of Russia, and Trump seems to personally fear angering Putin.
[Anne Applebaum: Nobody in Ukraine thinks the war will end soon]
The other possibility is that an American withdrawal from the peace process could clear the way for other nations to intensify their efforts to pressure Putin, which might be helpful, because American leaders simply do not understand who they're dealing with, or what's at stake for Russia.
Earlier today, Vice President J. D. Vance said: 'I think honestly that President Putin, he doesn't quite know how to get out of the war.' Vance has a point: Putin stupidly blundered into this war and now he's stuck, unable to advance and unwilling to retreat. Vance, however, doesn't understand what professional diplomats in the United States and other nations know is the fundamental problem: Putin is stuck only because he's still committed to a set of war aims that include the partition and eventual destruction of the Ukrainian state. If Putin wanted out, he could get out tomorrow, but he won't accept losing a war after three years that he thought he could win in a week.
Vance and other 'both sides' apologists have a shallow understanding of international conflict and almost none of Russia, which is why they seem flummoxed by Putin's stubbornness. To them, this is just a costly, bogged-down war over land, or churches, or something. For them, it all must end so that Trump doesn't look like a sap who has yet again been played by the sharpies in the Kremlin. They cannot grasp that Putin, who so far seems to be in no political danger at home from this war, still has the low-cost option of just pulverizing Ukrainian civilian targets while the West dithers.
Putin may well be ready for some kind of cease-fire agreement, if only so that his forces can catch their breath and regroup, his government can cast off some sanctions, and Putin himself can keep his own political house in order in Red Square. He's done it before in Crimea, playing for time while plotting his next move. But if that happens, it won't be because of Trump's efforts—and even the president himself seems to know it now.
Article originally published at The Atlantic
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