Trump starts “immediate” talks with Putin on Ukraine

Ever since Donald Trump vowed during his election campaign to end the war in Ukraine quickly, President Volodymyr Zelensky and his European supporters have feared abandonment by America. Their dread grew on 12 February when Mr Trump spoke by phone with Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, without coordinating the details beforehand with Ukraine, and announced that negotiations to end the war would start “immediately”. He later said he might meet Mr Putin in person in Saudi Arabia.

It was exactly the sort of unilateral American move that, just hours earlier, Mr Zelensky had warned against in an interview with The Economist. “If Russia is left alone with America, Putin with Trump, or their teams, they will receive manipulative information,” the Ukrainian president warned. European leaders said they should not be left out and insisted the West should seek to “put Ukraine in a position of strength”.

Supporters of Ukraine in the West accused Mr Trump and his entourage of making concessions to Mr Putin without getting anything in return. The Russian stock market rose. In global markets, the oil price slipped by 3%, reflecting in part an expectation that negotiations could eventually result in the rehabilitation of the Kremlin and the lifting of Western sanctions on Russia’s energy industry and the wider economy.

Mr Trump has met Mr Zelensky twice in recent months—in New York in September and in Paris in December—and the two spoke after the call with Mr Putin. But Ukrainian officials say they were not consulted on the timing or the content of the call—a break with the Biden administration’s stated policy of discussing “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” (though contacts between the White House and the Kremlin did take place behind the scenes).

Mr Zelensky nevertheless tried to sound positive after the news broke of the Trump-Putin conversation, posting on X, a social-media platform: “No one wants peace more than Ukraine. Together with the US, we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done.”

Mr Trump once boasted that he could get a deal done in less than 24 hours. That has not happened. But he is nevertheless moving fast, though with little sign of a real plan and much evidence of turmoil in his team.

Keith Kellogg, a former three-star general, had been designated as America’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. But it was Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s golfing buddy and now his Middle East envoy, who flew to Moscow on 11 February to bring home a detained American schoolteacher, Marc Fogel—a goodwill gesture by Mr Putin to prepare for the call with Mr Trump. Neither does General Kellogg figure in the negotiating team announced by Mr Trump: Marco Rubio, the secretary of state; Mike Waltz, the national security adviser; John Ratcliffe, the CIA director; and the trusted Mr Witkoff.

Mr Zelensky has sought to position himself as a willing partner for peace, casting Mr Putin as belligerent, determined to press his meat-grinding advance into Ukraine. For a while, Mr Trump seemed to share the view, even threatening tariffs and more sanctions against Russia if it refused to negotiate. Those close to his administration whispered that he understood that a deal would require much greater pressure on Mr Putin. Senior aides were sent to Europe to confer with Mr Zelensky and European allies at the Munich Security Conference that is starting on 14 February and elsewhere.

But the president suddenly changed direction. On 12 February, he announced on his Truth Social network his “lengthy and highly productive phone call” with the Russian leader. Mr Trump hailed their alliance in the second world war, gushed about the “great benefit” of working with Mr Putin and spoke of “visiting each other’s Nations”.

Negotiations require direct contacts. But Mr Trump is, in effect, starting to normalise relations with Russia without obtaining tangible concessions. Indeed, Mr Putin’s spokesman said talks had to involve more than the cessation of fighting; it was necessary to “address the root causes of the conflict”, which in Kremlin-speak means absorbing Ukraine into a Russian sphere of influence.

If anything, it was America that seemed to make the early compromises. Pete Hegseth, the newly installed American defence secretary, said it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to return to its international borders, given its territorial losses after Russia’s intervention in 2014 and its full-scale invasion in 2022.

He conceded that “a durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again”. But he seemed to stymie such guarantees in advance. He suggested that America would do little to provide them. Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO. Nor would America send forces to Ukraine to secure any peace agreement. Nor would it allow NATO to protect European troops that might be deployed there. Ukraine’s security would be the task of European and non-European troops in a “non-NATO mission”.

Future support for Ukraine is unclear. Mr Trump seems to be treating a possible agreement on American access to Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals as compensation for tens of billions in past American assistance “with little to show”. Mr Zelensky has suggested that he might agree to grant such access in return for continued aid, but Mr Trump has not yet accepted that.

Michael McFaul, a former American ambassador to Russia, posted on X: “Diplomacy 101: Don’t give anything without getting something in return. Don’t negotiate in public. Don’t negotiate about Ukraine’s future without first coordinating your position with Ukrainians.”