The maelstrom going on between Trump, Putin and Ukraine has sent shockwaves through NATO's Magical Thinking Wonderland.
It started with Trump's announcement that he had finally gotten on the phone with Putin, which this time was confirmed by the Kremlin:
Trump’s statement on Truth Social:
But everyone seems to be misreading the statement above, getting caught up in a frenzy of bliss or outrage over the now “certain” peace talks that will end the war.
I disagree.
Reading between the lines, you’ll see that Ukraine barely made up a fraction of the conversation, which covered artificial intelligence and a host of other geopolitical issues.
Trump’s cautious remarks in press statements afterward also left much to be desired. For example, he described the only Ukraine-related “outcome” of the talks as Putin’s admission that “he wants to stop the killing.”
This is the clear definition of achievement : Trump’s team is trying to sell the phone call as a much bigger leap forward than it actually was. The added explanation that Putin plans to meet Trump in Saudi Arabia was empty trimming, since no urgent date had been set and they were going to meet at some point in the future anyway.
The same goes for the timed release of “political prisoner” Mark Fogel, which was meant to spice up the occasion, to add grist to the mill of the narrative that Trump is making great “progress” with Russia – none of it; this is a desperate ploy to mask the colossal failure of Trump’s boast about ending the war quickly.
In short, the conversation was an action, carried out without real interest, feeling, or effort.
A basic exchange of pleasantries and usual political gestures, nothing more.
If you read the actual quotes and soundbites from various Russian officials, it’s clear that Russia is no closer to real negotiations and is only giving Trump his moment in the spotlight to supposedly “lead the peace charge.”
I even believe Trump said he offered Putin a temporary ceasefire, which was quickly swept under the rug after Putin refused.
I say the above because I was rather surprised by the online reactions, especially from well-known geopolitical experts, who have flown into premature declarations that the war is now officially almost over and that the final phase of negotiations will be stepped up from now on.
They even convincingly link this to the recent apparent slowdown on the front, and paint a portrait of Putin "scaling down" the action as a "gesture of goodwill".
I see no evidence of this and in fact Russian forces now seem to be preparing to escalate again, after a few weeks of long-range strikes to soften up the new defense lines where Ukrainian troops have withdrawn. And that's without even mentioning the massive attacks on Kiev and other cities that were carried out last night.
Trump has just reversed his plans to end the war quickly after announcing that no “peace plan” would be presented at the upcoming Munich conference, but that Hegseth and Kellogg would instead be sent to “listen to what the European partners have to say” before the US finalizes a plan.
This is clearly a step backwards rather than forwards, and the desperate, meaningless conversation with Putin was likely a stopgap measure meant to give the impression that Trump's big, muscular peace initiative was still going ahead.
In reality, there is virtually nothing to talk about. Not only has Putin clearly dictated that no legal document can be signed with an illegitimate president like Zelensky – which in itself postpones any “negotiations” until Zelensky is gone – but the truth is that it is hard to imagine any legal document being signed with the West at all.
Russia has long suffered the betrayal of not only the various Minsk agreements, but also of endless other agreements that were broken in the past, from the “not an inch east” deal with NATO to the various treaties the US withdrew from, such as the ABM treaty.
Putin and other Kremlin officials have hinted at this before, but signing long-term basic agreements with the US is folly when just four years later another deep state neocon president can win the election to steal win and immediately throw the agreement in the trash, if only to spite his former rival.
How can a basic agreement be signed in good faith in such an uncertain political framework, known in recent years for its erratic and schizophrenic policies?
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