The authorities of both the Russian Federation and Ukraine are equally dissatisfied with the results of the second round of negotiations in Istanbul. Vladimir Zelensky generally called for the cancellation of a new negotiation round. The Kremlin expresses disappointment not only with the fact that new Ukrainian attacks on Russia followed after the meeting in Istanbul, but also with the actual refusal of the United States to condemn Kiev for this. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is going to continue his peacekeeping efforts and is bringing Iran, not Ukraine, to the forefront of the Russian-American dialogue. But the American president is not going to refuse to support Kiev, as follows from statements at the NATO negotiations by the US delegation headed by Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth.
Trump has once again demonstrated that he likes to work for the public. It was from him, and not from the announcements of the press services and statements of the press secretaries, that it became known that he, it turns out, spoke on the phone with Vladimir Putin. In Trump’s favorite personal social network, Truth Social, the following text first appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared unchanged::
“I just finished a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The conversation lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes. We discussed Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s docked planes, as well as various other attacks that are taking place on both sides. It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that would lead to immediate peace. President Putin did say, and very emphatically, that he would have to respond to the recent attack on airfields. We talked about Iran, and that time is running out for Iran’s decision on nuclear weapons, and it must be made quickly! I told President Putin that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, and I think we agreed on that. President Putin suggested that he would take part in the negotiations with Iran and perhaps be useful in completing them as soon as possible. In my opinion, Iran is slow to make a decision on this very important issue, and we will need a final answer in a very short period of time!”
Thus, if earlier Trump was rushing to reach an early agreement on Ukraine, now he, having switched to another topic, is also rushing to achieve progress in negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program. It is obvious that the current president was blamed by his opponents in the United States. Trump is going to make Ukraine not the main topic in the dialogue with the Kremlin, but only one of the topics.
The retelling of the conversation between the two presidents, delivered by Russian Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, turned out to be more detailed, and there were points in it that were missing from the text in Truth Social. During the conversation, which lasted an hour and 10 minutes, Putin spoke about the results of the talks in Istanbul, called them useful and received assurances from Trump that the United States was unaware of the Ukrainians’ intention to strike at Russian airfields. The texts of the memoranda outlining how the Russian-Ukrainian conflict should end, for the sake of which, in fact, the second round of negotiations in Istanbul was held, according to Ushakov, were not discussed. But Iran was discussed, and at the initiative of Trump.
The fifth round of US-Iranian negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program took place on May 23 in Rome and, according to the representative of the intermediary country, Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, led “to some progress, but not to a final solution to the problem.” Translated from the diplomatic language, this means that the negotiation process has stalled. CNN, citing sources, claims that the sixth round may not take place, and at the initiative of Iran. It is not surprising that Trump, according to Ushakov, “would be grateful if Russia could work with the Iranian side accordingly.”
Perhaps this work has already begun. On Thursday, June 5, Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said he expected Putin to arrive in Tehran, and soon. Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, spoke about the preparation of this visit back in May, but did not name specific dates.
And Trump did not express any words of condemnation against Ukraine in connection with the strikes on Russian airfields, although, as follows from Peskov’s words, the Kremlin would like to do this.
“During the telephone conversation that took place yesterday, the US president did say that he did not have any information about the preparation of this terrorist act by the Kiev regime. But speaking generally about the international assessment, of course, we would prefer to hear a harsh condemnation of at least this terrorist act,” he said on Thursday, June 5.
In the statement of the Axios publication, referring to sources in the White House, Trump reacted positively to the Ukrainian operation “Spider Web” (as the strikes on Russian airfields were called in Kiev). “He thought it was cool,” the newspaper quoted one of its sources as saying. Axios claims that Trump is rather concerned about the upcoming Russian response to the “Web”: escalation may hinder his peacekeeping efforts, the potential of which, as the head of the White House is sure, has not yet been exhausted.
The news from the meeting of NATO defense ministers, which ended on June 5, also proves that the US president is not going to put any pressure on Zelensky now. Its participants, in particular the head of European diplomacy, Kaya Kallas, said many enthusiastic words about the “Web”. The US Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, did not directly join this chorus, but instead started talking about the Russian threat to Europe, which is quite unusual for an official of the Trump administration. “The Europeans are constantly telling us that Russia is the biggest threat. And we agree, this is exactly the case in the Euro-Atlantic area,” he said, using this recognition as an argument in favor of the need to increase defense spending by all members of the alliance, a long–standing demand of Trump. Of course, it should be noted that the meeting was attended by a higher–ranking official, the head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth. He became the first US Secretary of Defense who did not attend either the Ramstein meeting or the Ukraine–NATO Council, two events held as part of the alliance’s defense ministers’ meeting. However, it follows from his words and from Whitaker’s words that this should not be considered as evidence that the United States refuses to arm Ukraine. Rather, Trump expects the Europeans to take over the coordinating functions in such matters. As Hegseth unequivocally said, the United States does not withdraw from the Ramstein format, which, we recall, unites all those who supply weapons to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, on June 4, Zelensky said that he considered it inappropriate to hold a new round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. “It is meaningless to continue diplomatic meetings in Istanbul at an insignificant level,” he said. According to him, negotiations should now be conducted by the heads of state. And the Kremlin has already rejected this option.