'Historic' Putin-Trump Call is Small Step for Man, but No Giant Leap for Mankind
The long awaited discussion between Putin-Trump has finally taken place, reportedly clocking in at a historic two-and-a-half hours, which according to some sources is the longest call between an American and Russian president since at least the Cold War.
As expected, it was another nothing-burger, with Putin essentially repeating precisely the same talking points as have already been conveyed time and again to the US, most recently during Witkoff’s Moscow visit last week.
Essentially, Putin again inquired as to how a proposed 30-day ceasefire would be enforced, a question he had already raised to Witkoff—which still appears to have no clear answer.
During Trump call, Putin has raised Russian concerns about a ceasefire: strict controls are needed, as well as a HALT to Ukraine’s forced mobilization & rearming Putin emphasized that Kiev's history of constantly breaking deals and terrorism has also to be taken into account
But the most important points are noted above: Ukraine’s mobilization must be halted, as must military supplies to Ukraine. Putin knows both of these are essentially red lines for Zelensky, which means the two sides are no closer to seeing eye-to-eye. To keep Trump from embarrassment, Putin offered a courteous sop or two in the form a minor prisoner exchange, and the release of a few ‘badly wounded’ AFU servicemen—a drain on Russian resources anyway. This gesture serves no other purpose than to give Trump some room to save face and pretend that “things are moving ahead.”
It allows the press to print positive spin about the negotiations, like so:
The same goes for Putin’s acquiescence to a 30-day ceasefire on energy strikes which, as noted above, Ukraine ‘has to agree to’.
As one prominent Ukrainian analyst put it:
The agreement is essentially the same: they don’t hit our energy sector for 30 days, we obviously don’t hit their oil refineries.
These conditions are clearly not in our favor.
Ukraine has little left to strike in terms of energy systems, as much of their infrastructure now appears held up by mobile generators imported from Europe.
Russian refineries, on the other hand, have continued to be gored by Ukrainian drones and missiles, as seen most recently by the Tuapse refinery hit two days ago. As such, a cessation of such strikes seems to favor Russia in the short term. That is particularly the case since we’re now moving out of winter, and the ‘dark winter campaign’ of electric grid strikes will no longer be necessary for the time being. Also, it should be noted that Putin may have agreed to this merely for appearance’s sake, knowing that Zelensky himself will reject the offer, which would be a double win, as Russia will look like it at least tried, and can then continue strikes.
Either way, various claims immediately emerged that the ‘ceasefire’ had already turned to naught:
Hours later videos emerged of a reported hit on a Russian oil refinery in Krasnodar as well.
Here’s the full text of the corresponding Kremlin readout for reference:
The leaders continued a detailed and frank exchange of views on the situation around Ukraine. Vladimir Putin expressed gratitude to Donald Trump for his desire to help achieve the noble goal of ending hostilities and human losses.
Having confirmed his fundamental commitment to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, the Russian President declared his readiness to thoroughly work out possible ways of settlement together with his American partners, which should be comprehensive, sustainable and long-term. And, of course, to take into account the absolute need to eliminate the root causes of the crisis, Russia's legitimate interests in the field of security.
In the context of the US President's initiative to introduce a 30-day truce, the Russian side outlined a number of significant points regarding ensuring effective control over a possible ceasefire along the entire line of contact, the need to stop forced mobilization in Ukraine and rearm the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Serious risks associated with the inability to negotiate of the Kiev regime, which has repeatedly sabotaged and violated the agreements reached, were also noted. Attention was drawn to the barbaric terrorist crimes committed by Ukrainian militants against the civilian population of the Kursk region.
It was emphasized that the key condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict and working towards its resolution by political and diplomatic means should be a complete cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence information to Kiev.
In connection with Donald Trump's recent appeal to save the lives of Ukrainian servicemen surrounded in the Kursk region, Vladimir Putin confirmed that the Russian side is ready to be guided by humanitarian considerations and, in the event of surrender, guarantees the lives and decent treatment of the AFU soldiers in accordance with Russian laws and international law.
During the conversation, Donald Trump put forward a proposal for the parties to the conflict to mutually refrain from strikes on energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days. Vladimir Putin responded positively to this initiative and immediately gave the Russian military the corresponding order.
The Russian President also responded constructively to Donald Trump's idea of implementing a well-known initiative concerning the safety of navigation in the Black Sea. It was agreed to begin negotiations to further elaborate specific details of such an agreement.
Vladimir Putin informed that on March 19, the Russian and Ukrainian sides will exchange prisoners - 175 for 175 people. In addition, as a gesture of goodwill, 23 seriously wounded Ukrainian servicemen who are being treated in Russian medical institutions will be transferred.
The leaders confirmed their intention to continue efforts to achieve a Ukrainian settlement in a bilateral mode, including taking into account the above-mentioned proposals of the US President. For this purpose, Russian and American expert groups are being created.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump also touched upon other issues on the international agenda, including the situation in the ME and the Red Sea region. Joint efforts will be made to stabilize the situation in crisis areas, establish cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation and global security. This, in turn, will contribute to improving the overall atmosphere of Russian-American relations. One positive example is the joint vote in the UN on the resolution regarding the Ukrainian conflict. Mutual interest in normalizing bilateral relations was expressed in light of the special responsibility of Russia and the United States for ensuring security and stability in the world. In this context, a wide range of areas in which our countries could establish cooperation was considered. A number of ideas were discussed that go towards developing mutually beneficial cooperation in the economy and energy sector in the long term.
As you can see, Putin brought up all the previous points and made not even the slightest downgrade or revision to the terms. If before the Trump team were ignoring Putin’s demands as I had railed about, now Trump must surely understand them without exception. As such, the ball is directly in his court now, and it is up to him to decide whether he wants to force Kiev into bending to those terms, or escalate in a war of aggression against Russia.
There’s some indication from his Treasury secretary Scott Bessent that it may be the latter, disappointing option:
Note he says that Trump’s new plan to bolster the US Dollar as reserve currency is not to end sanctions, but rather to make them far stronger than ever before.
We can now see that Russia is not budging in the negotiations, and is merely repeating to the Trump team the same thing it has been trying to convey to the West since either the NATO letter of December 2021, or the Istanbul agreement of April 2022, or at the minimum since Putin’s various statements of 2024; except now, the demands are growing, with newly recognized lands added to the mix.
As such, NYT reports Zelensky’s aides now fear that Trump will end up giving away Odessa as well:
This was particularly the case given the phone call with Putin partly touched on ‘Black Sea port security’, though no details were provided.
In the end, we are no closer to any agreement. Not only does US not currently have the ability to hand over to Russia its main demands, but Kiev itself has drawn the red line on many of them, including demilitarization, recognition of annexed territories, etc. Trump currently has no leverage over Kiev given that he’s decided to continue arming Ukraine, which will prolong the conflict. That means the war must continue as it is, and Russia’s conditions will be revisited at some time in the future when Ukraine is forced into a more dire condition.
Ukrainians themselves now have 2026 set in their sights as a kind of magical year after which Russia will begin losing its advantages. This is not only from the standpoint of the Democrats potentially coming to power in the midterms, but also along what Budanov explains:
He claims to have secret intelligence that Russia must finish the conflict by 2026, or its “chances of becoming a superpower” are diminished due to a variety of culminating factors. Russia, for its part, is certainly not acting like this is the case, given that Putin is proceeding with utmost patience and leisurely determination—if such a thing exists. Russia does not appear in any hurry—to the contrary, it’s difficult to realistically argue the case for Ukraine being in a better position in 2026, no matter what kind of funding is disbursed to it from the EU.
As an interesting aside, earlier in the day, just as Putin and Trump were getting ready to have their historic call, Zelensky launched an attempted incursion of the Belgorod region, hoping to turn it into another ‘embarrassing’ sting like in Kursk. The intent was clearly to sink the negotiations, and signal to the world Ukraine ‘still has cards’ by now occupying a different part of Russia. Unfortunately for Ukraine, the assault failed, with large losses:
‼️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Kyiv attempted to wedge units into the Belgorod region to create a negative background around the negotiations between the presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States — the Ministry of Defense
▪️During the day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out five attacks, involving up to 200 Ukrainian militants, 5 tanks, 16 armored fighting vehicles, 3 engineering mine clearance vehicles, a UR-77 remote mine clearance system and four vehicles.
▪️Through the actions of the units covering the state border, all attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces were repelled and no crossing of the Russian border was allowed.
▪️Total losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces amounted to 60 people, a tank, 7 armored fighting vehicles, 3 engineering vehicles and a car. The remaining militants were dispersed, the enemy refused to make further attacks.
▪️30 air and missile strikes, as well as 13 army aviation strikes, an Iskander missile system strike and a Tornado-S MLRS strike, and two TOS strikes were carried out on Ukrainian Armed Forces concentration sites in the 8-10 kilometer zone in Sumy Oblast. 40 UMPK FAB-500 aerial bombs were used. The enemy suffered significant losses.
RVvoenkor
Geolocation from one of the videos above:
This places it here in relation to the Kursk region incursion (circled in yellow):
A large accumulation of Ukrainian troops was noted further south in Zolochiv, as well:
In conclusion, I continue to believe the Trump administration is desperate to signal strength to make up for its rapidly accumulating failures. The Kremlin is obliging them with a ‘gesture of good will’ by allowing the appearance of some ‘progress’ being made, when reality is quite the opposite.
Granted, I do not necessarily expect Trump to be able to fix things right away. He has to ‘play the game’ to some extent, given that the deep state and enemies in Congress would not allow him to go fully maximalist on Ukraine. There are still chances for him to make the right call in the near future, depending on what he does vis-a-vis Russian “pressure”.
For now, the above clearly fruitless call infact gives opportunity for Trump to re-characterize it as a success, which allows him to sell the ongoing negotiations as positive and friendly, which keeps the hyenas and hawks off his back, allowing him to put off being forced to act tough and tighten the proverbial vise on Russia. This could be what the secret backdoor ‘plan’ with Russia is all about: keep stringing these useless negotiations along while pretending they are making headway, all while giving Ukraine a symbolic amount of aid, while in effect waiting for Russia to slowly finish Ukraine off until such time that Kiev becomes amenable to real war-ending concessions. As stated, we will know if this is precisely the plan based on how Trump proceeds with any further ‘pressures’ or ‘leverage’ on Russia. Recall Scott Bessent has also previously threatened that Russian sanctions are currently a mere 5 on a scale of 10 and could be brought up to a 10.
It’s obvious that Trump must keep up a domestic ‘strongman’ image by “threatening Russia”, otherwise the media will eat him alive as being a Russian asset, Putin’s puppet, and the like. So we must judge him by his actions, not merely his words. There are some hopeful indications here and there: for instance, news today that the US is considering leaving its post as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander:
This could mean Trump is serious about throwing Ukraine to the Europeans. But we’ll have to see, he’s already quickly back-tracking on his anti-war campaign platform by senselessly attacking Yemen, so expectations are not exactly high.
Which forking path will he take? Share your thoughts.
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It is fairly clear what the plan is: the US and Russia agree on steps towards ending the conflict; then Zelensky rejects the ceasefire; that gives the US good cover for walking away from the Ukraine, since it is Zelensky who is the obstacle to peace.
The US and Russia continue repairing their relationship, while Russia does what it has to do in the Ukraine. And the floundering Euros are left .... floundering.
5/5 is the same as 10/10.
American education system at its best