They’ve been carefully circling each other for seven days now—sending invitations to talk, mixing some jabs with ego-stroking, and suggesting that the only way to end the Ukraine war is to Both have to meet, probably. Without Ukraine, .
President Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, whose relationship was always the subject of mystery and psychodrama during Trump’s first term, are at it again. But this is no simple re-run. Mr Trump was unusually tough in his rhetoric last week, saying Mr Putin was “destroying Russia”, and threatening sanctions and tariffs on the country if he did not come to the negotiating table. are Trade between America and Russia these days.
Agreeing with Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin has responded with flattery that, while agreeing with Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump has agreed that if Mr. Trump had been president three years ago . He reiterated that he was ready to sit down and discuss the fate of Europe, superpower to superpower, leader to leader.
So far they have not spoken, although Mr Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday night that “he wants to talk, and we will talk soon.” As they lay the groundwork for that first conversation, they are sending signals that they want to discuss more than just Ukraine. This war, Mr. Putin says, is just one arena in which the West is fighting its own battle. Against Russia
Both men seem to envision embracing the entire relationship between Moscow and Washington, possibly including renewed nuclear weapons talks. Including, a conversation that has a deadline: The two countries’ major arms-limiting treaty expires in about a year. Then, they would be free to pursue an arms race the world has not seen since the dark days of the Cold War.
Recalling a conversation with Mr. Putin in 2020 before his defeat in the U.S. election that year, Mr. Trump insisted last week, “We want to see if we can deny, and I think it’s very possible. is.” He appeared to think that China would engage in the same conversation. (At least so far he has refused.)
While he kept using the word “denuclearize,” Mr. Trump almost certainly meant to negotiate a new deal on — not reduce — the stockpile of strategic nuclear weapons, which can cross continents. For his part, Mr. Putin spoke of discussing “strategic stability,” a term of art between negotiators for negotiations covering not only the number of nuclear weapons deployed on each side. is, but also where they are based, how they are inspected, and measures to prevent their use.
Last, the last arms control talks ended shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Mr Putin has since argued that any talk of limiting nuclear weapons must also cover the war in Ukraine. The Biden administration had refused to conflate the two, fearing that Mr. Putin’s real goal was to trade limits on his nuclear arsenal for territory he had seized in Ukraine and other concessions.
But Mr. Trump appears open to a broader negotiation, which Mr. Putin would like, because it could help him end the trade.
It is unclear what, if any, long-term security guarantees Mr. Trump is willing to offer to President Volodymyr Zelensky, who he has recently made a deal with Mr. War should have been avoided.
Mr Trump clearly wants to establish himself as a peacemaker: in his first term he suggested he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize, and in Europe’s biggest war since World War II. A conclusion of some kind would strengthen his argument. Unlike former President Joe Biden, whose mantra was “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he seems unconcerned about giving Ukraine a prominent role in the process.
“For all these murky exchanges, what Putin wants to hear most is that it will attack Russia and America itself.” Official of the Department of State.
Keith Kellogg, a retired general who, at 80, has been tasked by Mr Trump to keep the conversation going, insists the key will be economics, not casualties. “When you look at Putin, you can’t just say, ‘OK, stop the killing,’ because frankly, that’s not his mentality,” he said on Fox News last week. approach it differently: they see economics as a piece of that war.” And they insist on limiting Russia’s oil revenues, and they will focus on
Mr. Putin, confident of his position on the battlefield in Ukraine despite Russia’s heavy casualties, is trying to telegraph a wait-and-see approach with Mr. Trump. He has said that Russia’s war aims have not changed, and that when it is ready to negotiate an end to the fighting, it will do so only on its own terms.
Mr. Putin has signaled strongly that, at a minimum, he would seek to retain the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine that Russia now controls, as well as reject NATO membership for Ukraine and its Along with an agreement to limit the size of the military, an agreement will also be made.
At the same time, Mr. Putin has made clear his eagerness to engage with Mr. Trump — and, after three years of diplomatic isolation by the Biden administration, with the United States more broadly.
Dmitry S. Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, has been telling reporters on a daily basis that Mr. Putin is ready to take Mr. Trump’s call. “We are waiting for signals,” he said on Friday. “Everybody’s ready.”
And Mr. Putin himself twice went out of his way to praise Mr. Trump — a proven way to win Mr. Trump’s favor.
On Monday, Mr Trump’s inauguration day, he held a televised meeting of Russia’s Security Council – an event that usually takes place on a Friday and largely behind closed doors. He said Mr Trump had “shown courage” in his bid to survive and won “a convincing victory”.
In a staged moment on Friday, Mr. Putin stopped short of answering a state television reporter’s question about Mr. Trump. The Kremlin immediately Posted Video on his website.
“Based on today’s realities, it is better for us to talk calmly about all the areas that are of interest to both the United States and Russia,” Mr. Putin said. He dismissed Mr Trump’s sanctions threats as “smart” and “pragmatic”, and criticized Mr Trump’s language of saying the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him.
Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin has signaled a willingness to discuss a much broader range of issues with Mr. Trump than just the war in Ukraine. In his comments on state television on Friday, Mr Putin said the Kremlin and the Trump administration could “jointly find solutions to today’s key issues, including strategic stability and the economy.”
The reference to “strategic stability” signals a possible interest in arms control talks, which the Kremlin briefly initiated in 2021 with the Biden administration. “We discussed a range of arms control and non-proliferation issues, from AI to weapons to renewing New Beginnings,” said former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who represented the U.S. side. discussed, said in an email. (New Beginnings is an arms control treaty that Russia has partially suspended, and it expires in February 2026.)
Ms. Sherman noted that the conversation “went beyond Putin’s horrendous attack.”
Mr. Putin’s invitation to broader talks marked Mr. Trump’s tough words about Russia last week and the fact that the president is serving his first term as president. A raft of new sanctions were imposed on Russia during .
Mr Trump also went after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinsky last week, accusing him of not striking a deal with Mr Putin that could have avoided war.
“I could have made the deal so easily, and Zelinsky decided, ‘I want to fight,'” Mr. Trump told Fox television host Sean Hannity.
He made it clear that he did not agree with Mr. Biden’s approach to helping Ukraine unless it was necessary. But with his tough rhetoric against Mr. Putin last week, Mr. Trump may be trying to show that he is no pushover for the Russian leader, while preparing for the possibility that Mr. Can’t include an agreement that works for all parties. .
“To keep Putin off balance, Trump can only make a deal when it makes sense to Ukraine and our allies,” Mr. Sestanovich said.
Even as Mr. Putin has welcomed talks with Mr. Trump, Russian officials are not backing down from their overall message about the United States as a lethal force — a sign that the Kremlin is keeping Mr. Trump at bay. How is your stake in the conversation in the case with the. Not going well.
Ms. Sherman, who has extensive experience negotiating with Russia, warned that the Trump administration should be prepared if negotiations with Russia begin. “Putin wants what he has always said he wants: more territory, Ukraine never in NATO, no Western nuclear weapons in Europe that could hit Russia.” Given that, she bets that actually negotiating a follow-on to a New Start deal is “probably low on her list.”
