Trump Calls His Old Pal Putin and Warms up to Russia, Maybe He Stroked a Secret Deal?
Ukrainian soldiers firing at advancing Russian troops in the Pokrovsk area in eastern Ukraine in November. The momentum on the main front of the war has favored Russia for more than a year.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Last week the old man said it was Putin's fault, this week after Putin's Call it's Ukraine Faults for the war
I guess they were supposed to be taken over and have half of the population annihilated. Actually Putin cares for land and minerals not humans in the land. Always been so.
The Phone call to Putin from his old Pal "The Donald" was not going to bring good news to Ukraine. I think Trump made it clear he wants to negotiate with Putin without Zelensky, unless he already did.
Putin released a detainee and it was was for something worthwhile. Maybe he already gave Ukraine away.
What to expect of a man who has dementia and believe he controls the world. He lies makes zig zags goes northward and if confronted goes back. This is the time for the European Union to put their Euros where their money is, otherwise they will have Russia taking over the old Soviet Union States or what we used to call them in school, "Satellites." The it will be war with Nukes or peace without a NATO. The west have been able to call Putin's bluffs, he is just like Trump that's why they like each other.
They have no character and they do what ever they want regardless of the loss in human costs. As long as is not to their families they don't care. With Trump I think even his family will be thrown under the boss. He loves his skin too much.
Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
The New York Times
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was already facing a daunting week as foreign officials gathered in Europe for talks about his country’s future.
The Trump administration was demanding $500 billion in Ukrainian mineral rights, it canceled Ukraine’s exemption from U.S. tariffs on steel, and a leading American skeptic of military assistance for Kyiv, Vice President JD Vance, was on his way to Europe for a meeting with the Ukrainian leader.
But on Wednesday, things went from bad to worse. Mr. Trump’s defense secretary delivered a harsh assessment of Ukraine’s prospects in its war with Russia. Then Mr. Trump announced that he had spoken with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a call Mr. Trump characterized as the opening of talks to end the war — with no clear role for Mr. Zelensky.
The phone call also spelled the end of American efforts to isolate Russia diplomatically after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago
“He’s on his heels geopolitically,” Cliff Kupchan, chairman of Eurasia Group, a risk analysis firm based in Washington, said of Mr. Zelensky.
Mr. Trump’s actions in the last two days — which also included a prisoner swap with the Kremlin that freed an American teacher — signaled a thawing relationship between the United States and Russia that could favor Mr. Putin in a peace deal while leaving Ukraine on the sidelines.
Mr. Trump also called the Ukrainian leader on Wednesday, but in a social media post he did not mention how, or if, Mr. Zelensky would figure in peace talks.
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Mr. Zelensky will meet with Mr. Vance and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, at the annual Munich Security Conference, which opens on Friday, Mr. Trump said.
Negotiations to end the deadliest war in Europe in generations will shape the future of Ukraine, and the recent developments mean some of its territory likely to remain under Russian occupation.
And they will shape Mr. Zelensky’s political future. He has little choice but to go along with American-led talks despite his deep skepticism, shared by most Ukrainians, of Mr. Putin’s readiness to negotiate without imposing onerous conditions or bringing more military and economic pressure to bear.
By Thursday morning, it was a sentiment swirling widely in Kyiv, a city now hit nightly with Russian missiles and exploding drones.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst, wrote on Facebook that Mr. Putin was most likely playing the Trump administration for time. “He is not going to compromise on ending the war, as Trump’s team wants,” he wrote.
Image
Ukraine’s president, wearing a black sweatshirt, and Donald Trump in a blue suit and red tie walk into a glass-walled room trailed by other men.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine with Donald J. Trump in New York in September. Mr. Trump’s recent actions have signaled a warming relationship between the United States and Russia.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Mr. Trump wasn’t the only one to deliver sobering news to Ukraine. The new U.S. secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, told European allies on Wednesday that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to return to its borders as they were before Russia’s military invasion began in 2014.
And he added that the United States did not support Ukraine’s goal of joining NATO to secure any peace settlement, calling it “unrealistic.”
Mr. Zelensky has played weak hands well before. In the opening days of Russia’s invasion, he popped out of a bunker to film selfie videos that rallied his country, and much of the world, to Ukraine’s cause.
Now he is again facing a pivotal moment for his country in a diminished position, sinking in domestic polls and getting a cold shoulder from his most important ally.
Mr. Zelensky has twice in recent days said he is willing to negotiate with Mr. Putin if Western allies offer security guarantees in a settlement. In his nightly address to the nation Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader was conciliatory, saying he had a “good and detailed discussion” with Mr. Trump.
“We discussed many aspects — diplomatic, military, economic — and President Trump informed me of what Putin had told him,” he added. “We believe that America’s strength is sufficient to pressure Russia and Putin into peace, together with us, together with all our partners.”
Mr. Putin, for his part, has signaled that Mr. Zelensky would need to face an election at home before Russia would accept his signature on a peace deal.
The demand suggests a Russian view of a potential three-step process for negotiating a settlement to the war, according to a person who has had recent conversations about settlement scenarios with senior Russian officials.
. It envisions an initial truce and preliminary deal, followed by elections in Ukraine and only then a binding peace settlement, said the person, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
There have been some bright spots for Ukraine. Soon after his inauguration, Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Putin harshly, saying he was “destroying” Russia with the war.
And while Mr. Trump’s claim on Ukraine’s minerals comes at a big cost for Kyiv, it has also been viewed by Ukrainian officials as a hopeful sign.
The talks on mineral rights, which began on Wednesday with a visit to Kyiv by the American Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, open a path for Mr. Trump to continue military aid while claiming to have secured a benefit for the United States.
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