After Donald Trump’s “very good and productive” phone call with Vladimir Putin earlier this week, all eyes were on his subsequent call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Would it, as it did when they last met in the flesh on February 28 at the White House, descend into disastrous acrimony? Or would Zelensky manage to engage with the US president in a cooperative way that encourages him to see Ukraine and its leader in a more favourable light?
The latter, it seems. In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump referred to their “very good telephone call”, which got the two leaders “very much on track”. Zelensky for his part, talked of a “very good” and “frank” phone call and seemed to agree with everything the US president had to say, taking pains to emphasise and praise Trump and America’s leadership.
With his vocal support of Trump’s proposal for peace, Zelensky has put the attention back on Putin. He clearly wants to appear to be the more reasonable negotiating partner by going along with the US president’s proposals.
In spite of Zelensky’s misgivings about how trustworthy Putin is, he has agreed to a limited ceasefire with Russia on energy infrastructure (while stressing that, unlike Putin, he agrees with Trump’s aim for a complete ceasefire).
Zelensky clearly knows that Russia has a great deal to gain from a pause on attacks on energy grids and oil refineries, given Ukraine’s increasing capacity to use long-range drone attacks. And a maritime ceasefire, if agreed, would also favour Russia.
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But by publicly voicing Ukraine’s support for Trump’s plan for a ceasefire, Zelensky has exposed Putin’s disinterest in stopping hostilities.
In the call, Zelensky emphasised that Ukraine was happy to support the US call for a ceasefire, without conditions. Putin, meanwhile, in his call with Trump laid out a set of frankly unreasonable demands.
These included the complete cessation of military aid and intelligence sharing by Ukraine’s allies, including the US. He also demanded a complete halt on Ukrainian troop mobilisation and rearmament.
The demands were so ridiculous, they were designed to get Ukraine to reject them. Interestingly Trump, when he was interviewed after his phone call with Putin, denied that the pair had discussed aid. Crucially, he didn’t say whether this was something he would agree to.
But the fact that the two leaders discussed the possibility of an ice hockey match between their two countries is an indication of how Putin is able to manipulate the US president with flattery. It helps that Trump clearly admires Putin and has repeatedly said that he trusts the Russian leader.
Has Putin overplayed his hand?
But this could come with a time limit. Trump, who wants a peace deal to trumpet as a crowning achievement, could well get tired of the fact that Putin has made no concessions to allow that deal to progress.
The Russian leader is clearly hoping that by seeming to engage with the “peace” process, while at the same time dangling the prospect of doing business with Russia – for example by offering the US the chance to explore Russia’s own reserves of rare earth minerals – he can keep Trump on side.
But while Trump still leans toward Putin, his relationship with Zelensky seems to have improved. The Ukrainian president appears to have learned that Trump doesn’t have a long memory and that flattery goes a long way with the US president.
Trump, meanwhile, is no longer calling Zelensky a dictator, and as yet there is no mention of halting US military aid or intelligence to Ukraine. There is the opposite, in fact, as the US has said it will assist in finding more Patriot missile defence systems after Zelensky mentioned that they were sorely needed.
By giving Trump credit for the ceasefire initiative, Zelensky is putting the ball in Russia’s court. And his apparent receptiveness to Trump’s idea about the US taking over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants will appeal to Trump’s transactional instincts. In addition to offering Trump business deals, Zelensky is now consistently offering Trump praise for his peace efforts.
And it’s clear from the tone of the briefing given by White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, after the call that the US was happy with how it went. Leavitt stressed Zelensky’s praise for Trump’s leadership several times.
Zelensky has also successfully turned Trump’s attention to the 35,000 missing children abducted from Ukraine into Russia during the war. The US state department had stopped tracking them and had deleted the evidence it had gathered, but Trump is now vowing to return the children home.
Putin is generally thought to be stringing these negotiations out as long as possible in order to maximise the amount of Ukrainian territory his army occupies. This could be a risky strategy.
Ending the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible was one of Trump’s repeated campaign promises. So the question is how long Trump can remain distracted or satisfied by Putin’s false engagement with the peace process.
The American president seems to be changing his tune on Ukraine more generally. His disastrous Oval Office press conference last month with Zelensky was viewed by some as a ploy to portray Ukraine as a difficult and ungrateful partner compared to Russia who he maintained was only interested in achieving a peaceful end to the war. Now, with Zelensky seemingly agreeing with whatever Trump says, it’s become harder for him to take that line.
For now, at least, the pressure is back on Putin.
