From 'crazy SOB' to 'he wants peace': Trump flips the US's Putin script
Putin has seen 6 U.S. presidents come and 5 go. Where do things stand in the current U.S.-Russia relationship?
Out with he's a "crazy SOB," a "butcher" and "war criminal" who "cannot remain in power." In with "I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn't. I trust him on this subject."
Foreign affairs specialists say that when world leaders conduct diplomacy under the glare of the lights − statements, news conferences, impromptu remarks − their true intentions aren't always clear.
But there's little question President Donald Trump's public comments appearing to accommodate Russia's President Vladimir Putin over a possible Ukraine war peace deal are a major departure from Joe Biden's confrontational stance against Putin. Trump has flipped the United States' Putin script.
And it has shocked Ukraine and its European allies.
"At the moment it looks like Russia 1, the United States 0, and if Russia is winning, Ukraine is losing," said Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, in a phone interview from Munich. Goncharenko is attending a security conference in Munich, where Vice President JD Vance gave a speech that mostly avoided the Russia-Ukraine conflict and instead addressed social issues important to the Trump administration's political base. After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Vance said they had "good conversations" about how to bring the war to a close.
Still, Goncharenko added of Trump's comments: "This is not the language with which to speak about Putin. It's hard to understand what Trump really means when he says these things. He needs to understand that Putin hates the U.S."
Tump-Putin call: 'Lengthy and fruitful'
Putin has seen six U.S. presidents come and five go. There has been on-and-off U.S.-Russia cooperation on trade, nuclear and ballistic missile treaties, fighting terrorism and more for decades. But enmity certainly looked like the consensus − public − wisdom on Russia during the Biden administration.
As Putin, Russian officials and state media routinely mocked Biden, the former president labeled Putin a "pure thug," a "brutal tyrant" and a "murderous dictator." He cut off all contact with Russia's government after Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Biden gave Ukraine billions in U.S. military assistance, rallied allies behind Ukraine's fight and insisted the mission was to support Ukraine "as long as it takes," drawing Moscow's ire.
Biden's critics, including Zelenskyy, said that approach, which stopped short of promising to help Ukraine join NATO on its own accelerated time frame or recover all the territory Russia seized from Ukraine in the 2022 invasion and earlier in 2014, was helpful and appreciated yet also too vague and ultimately insufficient.
"With all due respect to the U.S. and the administration," Zelenskyy told the podcaster Lex Fridman after Biden left office, "I don’t want the same situation like we had with Biden. I ask for sanctions now, please, and weapons now."
Brett Bruen was White House director of global engagement during the Obama administration. He now runs the Global Situation Room, a consultancy. He said the Kremlin − the aggressor in the almost three-year war − has been unwilling to "put a lot on the table" for any peace deal with Ukraine, whether that's returning Ukrainian land or providing guarantees, if there is a deal, it won't reinvade Ukraine or another country bordering Russian territory that it views as within its sphere of influence.
"Astonishing" is how Bruen characterized Trump's suggestion that he is prepared to roll back U.S. sanctions on Moscow, as well as comments Thursday in Brussels from U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth appeared to question the U.S. commitment to NATO. On Wednesday, Trump said he had a "lengthy and fruitful" phone discussion with Putin and the two leaders agreed to immediately begin talks to end the war in Ukraine. (Trump has said he would likely impose additional sanctions on Russia if Putin refuses to negotiate.)
In a blog post titled "This Is Not Appeasement, It Is Worse," Phillips P. O'Brien, a professor of strategic security studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, wrote Friday that "Trump is helping Putin" when the Russian leader needs it most. "The Russian army is really struggling right now. Its advances are slowing and its losses are extremely high. In fact, what Trump seems to be doing is offering a hand of friendship and support to Putin."
'Any quick fix is a dirty deal'
On Wednesday, Trump also spoke with Zelenskyy. But that was after he spoke with Putin, which raised eyebrows, not least Zelenskyy's. He said the whole thing looked as if the U.S. and Russia were negotiating over Ukraine's head.
Bruen said Trump's comments and the sequence of the calls amounted to a "diplomatic equivalent to capitulation to the Kremlin." Kaja Kallas, the European Union's foreign policy chief, agreed with that assessment.
“Why are we giving (Russia) everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started?" she said. "Any quick fix is a dirty deal."
The Trump administration disputes that logic. It says a fresh, more realistic approach to Ukraine is needed. To the White House, it should account for Moscow's stated position that it will never commit to allowing Ukraine to join NATO because it's unlikely to give back Ukrainian territory it has annexed, and that reflects "America First" principles.
"You don’t have to operate under a position of trust in order to negotiate a deal," Hegseth said Friday in Poland when questioned by reporters over any forthcoming talks between Trump and Putin.
"There will be a follow-up in ensuring that whatever peace is negotiated is a lasting and enduring peace," he said.
'Common ground' with Putin
One senior European official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting an ally, was not convinced.
Trump effectively sold Ukraine, the official said, and it won't end well.
In fact, over the years Putin has used a policy of strategic ambiguity encompassing propaganda and disinformation to cajole, threaten and pressure the West to do what he wants, according to multiple CIA assessments.
"We do not understand fundamentally, none of us do, what is inside President Putin's head, and so we cannot make any guess about where this is headed," Julianne Smith, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told reporters just a few days before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 as officials the world over were trying to read the Putin tea leaves.
Trump "is in a weak position now and put Europe in a weak position too," Ksenia Maximova, a Moscow-born opposition political activist who heads the London-based Russian Democratic Society, said in a WhatsApp message. "He's also legitimized Putin by saying he can visit the U.S."
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023, accusing him, several of his closest aides and Russia's military of war crimes in Ukraine. The Kremlin denies the allegations.
Trump's words this month were welcomed by some in Russia.
"I am sure that in Kyiv, Brussels, Paris and London they are now reading Trump’s lengthy statement on his conversation with Putin with horror and cannot believe their eyes," senior Russia lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said in comments published by Russian state media. RIA Novosti, a Russian news agency, said in an editorial column: "The U.S. finally hurt Zelenskyy for real.” The article added that Trump had found "common ground" with Putin.
Pekka Haavisto is a Finnish politician and onetime presidential candidate who served as the Nordic country's foreign minister in a place that may know Russia's leader better than anyone else.
Finland joined NATO in April 2023 in direct reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It shares an 833-mile border with Russia. Various monarchs of the Russian Empire repeatedly tried to conquer Finland. Finland fought off a Soviet invasion when Josef Stalin's Red Army attacked it in 1939 in what's known as the Winter War.
Of Trump's public comments on Putin and peace for Ukraine, Haavisto said, "It was premature."