President Donald Trump mentioned that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “prolonged and extremely productive cellphone name” on Wednesday morning through which they agreed to work collectively “very carefully” on a diplomatic decision to the struggle in Ukraine and to go to each other’s nations.
The president’s lengthy summation of the cellphone name, which got here in a social media post, laid naked an astonishing shift in technique, a need to normalize relations with Russia regardless of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine — and Trump’s willingness to take Russia’s chief critically about his shared need to finish the struggle that he launched with out provocation.
“As we each agreed, we need to cease the hundreds of thousands of deaths going down within the Struggle with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote. “President Putin even used my very sturdy Marketing campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’”
Trump’s submit repeated his need to finish the almost three 12 months struggle in Ukraine. However he spoke of initiating negotiations in bilateral phrases — between the U.S. and Russia, treating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a lesser celebration.
Trump and Putin “additionally agreed to have our respective groups begin negotiations instantly, and we are going to start by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to tell him of the dialog, one thing which I might be doing proper now,” Trump wrote.
After threatening Putin straight throughout his first days in workplace, Trump’s new posture seems to be what Ukraine supporters feared — a stark about-face for American international coverage that’s successfully the alternative of the strategy taken by former President Joe Biden, who lower off diplomatic ties with Russia and prioritized shut coordination with Zelenskyy and NATO allies.
Trump’s name with Putin got here simply as Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth instructed allies in Europe that the U.S. now views “returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic goal.” He additionally appeared to surrender the largest level of leverage the West has over Russia in a negotiation, stating explicitly that the strongest safety assure Ukraine might have — NATO membership — is, within the administration’s view, not “a practical final result of a negotiated settlement.”
In his submit, Trump mentioned that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, nationwide safety adviser Mike Waltz and Particular Envoy Steve Witkoff will oversee negotiations to resolve the Russia-Ukraine battle.
