It was billed as a phone call of vast import: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would try to resolve the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945. The two sides hailed their talk as “epic” and “historic”. But the substance was less impressive. After two hours, the only concrete results were Mr Putin’s agreement to halt attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and a promise of “technical negotiations” to ease navigation in the Black Sea.
The two countries’ descriptions of the call differed sharply. The Kremlin’s read-out said Mr Putin had stipulated that to achieve a full ceasefire, America would have to stop giving Ukraine weapons and intelligence; Ukraine must halt mobilisation and re-armament. Any more lasting peace agreement should “eliminate the root causes of the crisis” and preserve “Russia’s legitimate security interests”. That is Kremlin-speak for forcing neutrality on Ukraine and, ideally, pushing NATO out of eastern Europe. Russia welcomed the idea of “reaching a settlement in Ukraine bilaterally”, seemingly meaning one negotiated by America and Russia over the heads of Ukraine and Europe.
Read more of our recent coverage of the Ukraine war
The White House’s version, however, did not mention Mr Putin’s demands. Mr Trump presented the halt to energy-infrastructure attacks as a first step, to be followed by a complete ceasefire and “ultimately, an END to this very horrible War”. In an interview on Fox News, Mr Trump said “we did not talk about aid [to Ukraine] at all.” The gap between the two accounts prompted independent Russian journalists to joke that Mr Trump might have spoken to a prankster rather than Mr Putin.
As far as Mr Putin was concerned, a ceasefire was never the aim. He wanted to begin normalising relations with America and to lure Mr Trump with promises of a “big deal”—while pursuing his goal of crushing Ukraine and deepening the rift between America and Europe. Mr Putin is expert at “mirroring” his interlocutors’ desires. He played on two of Mr Trump’s traits: vanity, and his obsession with deals.
On the vanity side, Mr Putin flattered Mr Trump’s statesmanship and humanitarianism. In its summary the Kremlin lavished praise on “his striving to achieve the noble goal of ending the hostilities”, and presented an exchange of 175 POWs on each side as a concession. Mr Putin framed Ukraine’s leaders as tiresome subordinates hampering the efforts of two great powers to pursue global security, nuclear non-proliferation and peace in the Middle East. To Mr Putin’s ear, Mr Trump’s insistence on the immorality of war and its costs to the American taxpayer may echo the weakness of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who cut assistance to client states in pursuit of economic welfare.
Mr Putin played on Mr Trump’s wheeler-dealer self-image by hinting at what the White House called “enormous economic deals”. Outside the call, Russia dangled promises of rare-earth minerals and of collaboration n the Arctic, which contains vast oil and gas reserves. The entrepreneurial Mr Trump seems to have taken the bait. ”They have some very valuable things for us, including rare earth. They have a big chunk of real estate, the biggest in the world,” Mr Trump told Fox News.
Speaking with Mr Trump on March 19th, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, accepted Russia’s offer to mutually pause attacks on energy infrastructure. (Mr Trump fancifully suggested America take over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants to ensure their security.) Meanwhile, European countries are scrambling both to assist Ukraine and to defend themselves, now that American pledges of security seem untrustworthy. Germany’s parliament this week voted to loosen constitutional debt restrictions for defence spending. Britain and France are leading efforts to create a “reassurance” force that would deploy to Ukraine if a lasting ceasefire takes effect. Poland and the three Baltic states gave notice on March 18th that they would withdraw from the Ottawa convention that bans anti-personnel landmines. In the 1980s, detente between Russia and America increased global feelings of security. Mr Trump’s engagement with Mr Putin is having the opposite effect.■
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