They have been carefully patrolling each other for the past seven days. He sends out an invitation for conversation and, with a few jabs and egos, suggests that perhaps the only way to end the war in Ukraine is for the two to meet without the Ukrainians. .
The relationship between President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin, a constant subject of mystery and psychological drama during Trump’s first term, has once again deteriorated. But it’s not a simple rerun. Mr. Trump issued unusually harsh remarks last week, saying Mr. Putin was “destroying Russia” and threatening to impose sanctions and tariffs on Russia if it did not come to the negotiating table. Recent trade between the United States and Russia.
Mr. Putin, still calculating and reserved, responded with flattery, agreeing with Mr. Trump that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Mr. Trump had been president three years ago. He reiterated his readiness to sit down and negotiate Europe’s fate from superpower to superpower, leader to leader.
So far, the two sides have not spoken, but Trump told reporters on Air Force One Saturday night that “he wants to talk and he will talk soon.” As they prepare for their first round of talks, they are signaling that they want to negotiate on more than Ukraine. According to Putin, this war is just one arena in which Western countries are fighting their own battles. Against Russia.
Both men appear to be envisioning taking over the entire Russia-US relationship, including possibly reviving the impending nuclear arms talks. A major treaty limiting the two countries’ weapons arsenals is set to expire in almost exactly a year. They would then be free to pursue an arms race of a kind the world has not seen since the deepest days of the Cold War.
Recalling his 2020 conversation with Putin before his defeat in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Trump insisted last week: “I want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think it’s very likely.” . He seems to assume that China will engage in similar dialogue. (At least for now, I’m refusing.)
Trump continued to use the term “denuclearization,” meaning negotiating a new agreement to reduce, rather than eliminate, the stockpile of strategic nuclear weapons that could cross continents. There is almost no doubt that. Putin spoke of reviving discussions about “strategic stability,” a technical term among negotiators. This term includes not only the number of nuclear weapons deployed on both sides, but also their nuclear weapons locations and inspection methods. , and steps to prevent its use.
The last interim arms control talks concluded just before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Since then, Putin has insisted that talks on limiting nuclear weapons should also cover the war in Ukraine. The Biden administration is concerned that Putin’s real goal is to gain occupied territory and other interests in Ukraine in exchange for limiting its nuclear arsenal, and is reluctant to confuse the two. He was refusing.
But Mr. Trump seems open to broader negotiations, which is exactly what Mr. Putin wants, because it could make trade-offs possible.
It is not clear if Mr. Trump intends to provide President Volodymyr Zelensky with long-term security, but Mr. They argue that it should have been avoided.
Trump clearly wants to position himself as a peacemaker. During his first term, he suggested he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize and that bringing some kind of end to Europe’s biggest war since World War II would strengthen his case. did. In contrast to former President Joe Biden, who believed in “no Ukraine without Ukraine,” he seems uninterested in giving Ukraine a substantive role in the process.
Stephen Sestanovich, an expert on Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and former head of the Institute for Foreign Relations, said, “Amid these heated exchanges, what President Putin most wants to hear is whether Russia and the United States can reach a deal on their own.” It’s an agreement,” he said. State Department official.
Keith Kellogg, an 80-year-old retired general who was tasked by Mr. Trump to lead the talks, says the key is the economy, not the victims. “When you look at President Putin, you can’t say, ‘Stop killing,’ because frankly that’s not how they think,” he said on Fox News last week. Trump “has a different approach to war. He sees the economy as part of the war.” And Kellogg insists he will focus on limiting Russia’s oil revenues.
Mr. Putin is confident in Ukraine’s battlefield position, despite Russia’s enormous sacrifices, and is trying to send a wait-and-see message to Mr. Trump. He said Russia’s war goals had not changed and that it was ready for talks to end the fighting, but that Russia would only do so on its own terms.
Mr. Putin has signaled strongly that, at a minimum, he intends to press for a deal that would allow Russia to maintain the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine it currently controls, exclude Ukraine from joining NATO, and limit the size of its military.
At the same time, Mr. Putin has made clear his eagerness to engage with Mr. Trump and the United States more broadly after three years of diplomatic isolation by the Biden administration.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov has told reporters almost daily that Mr. Putin is ready to receive Mr. Trump’s phone call. “We are waiting for the signal,” he said Friday. “Everyone is ready.”
And Mr. Putin himself twice last week went out of his way to lavish Mr. Trump with praise, a proven way to win Mr. Trump’s support.
On Monday, the day of Trump’s inauguration, he held a video conference of the Russian Security Council. This meeting usually takes place on Fridays and is mostly closed to the public. He said Trump “showed courage” despite an attempt on his life and won a “convincing victory.”
On Friday, Mr. Putin paused in a moment of onstage direction to answer a question from a state television reporter about Mr. Trump. The Kremlin quickly posted the video on its website.
“Given today’s realities, it would probably be better to calmly discuss all areas of interest to both the United States and Russia,” Putin said. He dismissed Trump’s threat of sanctions as “sensible” and “realistic” and echoed Trump’s words, saying the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.
Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin has indicated he is willing to discuss a broader range of issues with Mr. Trump than just the Ukraine war. In comments on state television on Friday, Putin said the Kremlin and the Trump administration “can jointly seek solutions to the important problems of our time, including strategic stability and the economy.”
The reference to “strategic stability” suggested potential interest in arms control talks the Kremlin tentatively began with the Biden administration in 2021. “We discussed a range of arms control and nonproliferation issues, from weapons AI to New START updates,” he said. Wendy Sherman, a former deputy secretary of state who led the talks on behalf of the U.S., said in an email. (New START is an arms control treaty that has been partially suspended by Russia and is set to expire in February 2026.)
Ms. Sherman noted that the talks were called off in the face of “Putin’s horrific aggression.”
Mr. Putin’s invitation to the wide-ranging talks also comes after Mr. Trump made tough remarks about Russia last week and the fact that the president imposed a number of new sanctions on Russia during his first term as president. Regardless, Putin remains optimistic about Trump. .
Trump also went after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week, essentially accusing him of not striking a deal with Putin that could have averted war.
Trump told Fox TV host Sean Hannity: “We were able to come to an agreement so easily. And Zelensky decided he wanted to fight.”
He has made it clear that he is not interested in Biden’s approach of supporting Ukraine for as long as necessary. But in his harsh words against Putin last week, Trump said he was not pushing the Russian leader aside, bracing himself for the possibility that he might not be able to persuade Putin to reach a deal that works for all sides. Maybe he’s trying to show that. .
“To keep President Putin off balance, President Trump must show that a deal is possible only if it makes sense for Ukraine and our allies,” Sestanovich said.
While Mr. Putin welcomes the meeting with Mr. Trump, Russian officials have not backed away from their overall message that the United States is a malign force. This is one sign of how the Kremlin is hedging risks should talks with Trump materialize. It doesn’t work.
Sherman, who has extensive experience negotiating with Russia, warns that the Trump administration should be ready when negotiations begin. “Putin will want what he has said he wants: securing as much territory as possible, keeping Ukraine out of NATO, and potentially targeting Russia in Europe. Given that, she bets that actually negotiating a successor agreement to the New START Treaty “would probably be low on his list.”
