Diplomatic timing is of the essence, and the Kremlin seemed to have timed its latest lengthy phone call with the White House, its eighth in the past eight months, perfectly.
As US President Donald Trump prepares to meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington and publicly weigh the risks of supplying long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kiev, Russian officials called the call they initiated “positive and productive” and “held in an atmosphere of trust.”
In fact, it was a nearly two-and-a-half-hour intervention by President Vladimir Putin – aimed at stopping at the last moment all dangerous talk about a potentially game-changing U.S. supply of weapons to Ukraine.
Putin is said to have emphasized during Trump’s call that the Tomahawk’s range can target major Russian cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg and will not have a major impact on the battlefield. He added that they would only harm U.S.-Russian relations, which he knew Trump valued very much.
Putin also praised Trump as a peacemaker in the Middle East and beyond, according to a Kremlin aide.
An economic deal was again up in the air and, crucially, the two sides agreed on a second face-to-face presidential summit, this time in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss ending the war in Ukraine again, if not agree.
It will inevitably draw comparisons to the failed Alaska summit a few months ago, when Trump gave Putin a red carpet reception but achieved no real results in pushing for a peace deal in Ukraine.
But now, Trump is excited about his achievements in brokering a ceasefire in Gaza and freeing Israeli hostages, saying that despite the difficulties, his success in the Middle East will help end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Exactly how is unclear. The Kremlin has given no indication it is ready to compromise. Despite mounting battlefield casualties and increasing Ukrainian drone attacks on its energy infrastructure, leading to nationwide fuel shortages, Russia has always ruled out ending the war in Ukraine before achieving its top goals.
These include taking control of large swathes of annexed Ukrainian territory that has not yet been conquered and imposing strict military and foreign policy restrictions on postwar Ukraine that would effectively bend Kyiv to Moscow's will.
There was nothing in Trump’s recent phone call with Putin to suggest that has changed.
But over the past nine months of Trump's second administration, the Kremlin has also learned that providing personal involvement and preserving the possibility of short-term victory can be as effective as any painful compromise.
Ukrainian officials gathered in Washington said it was the Tomahawk discussion that forced Putin to reopen talks.
This may be true. But Moscow’s calculation is that the mere prospect of progress in peace talks may be enough to tempt a deal-hungry Trump to abandon his military threats.