The comments made by the Russian Federation and the United States following the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump indicated that the dialogue had worked out, but at the same time left room for interpretation. They were given on Tuesday, May 20, the day after the conversation, not only by journalists and analysts, but also by representatives of the governments of America’s allies. The prospect of concluding a memorandum between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Trump’s intention to intensify trade relations with Russia, raised a lot of questions.
On Monday, the presidents of the two countries spoke for about two hours. Both Putin and Trump assessed the conversation positively. The president of the United States, who likes to talk about his work to an excellent degree, called him even admirable. However, what was agreed upon was detailed not by Putin, but by Trump. According to him, the two presidents agreed that “Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace treaty defining a number of positions, such as, for example, the principles of settlement, the timing of a possible peace agreement, and so on, including a possible ceasefire for a certain time in the event of reaching appropriate agreements.”
Putin’s statement corresponds to the position that the Russian delegation defended at the talks in Istanbul: a truce should be a consequence, not a condition of negotiations. The indefinite cessation of hostilities without addressing what Moscow calls the root causes of the conflict is rejected.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social network that “Russia and Ukraine will immediately begin negotiations on a cease-fire,” and “the terms of this will be discussed by the two sides, as they should be, since they know the details of the negotiations that no one else knows about.” In other words, the American president announced new Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.
Where and when will they be held?
There are many people willing to offer their country as a negotiating platform and their services as a mediator in resolving the Russian-Ukrainian conflict today. In addition to Turkey, these are at least Brazil and the Vatican. In particular, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a meeting with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who coordinates the Holy See’s efforts in Ukraine, that the Vatican could become the venue for future negotiations. Judging by Trump’s comment on Truth Social, the US president is positive about this idea. However, so far neither Moscow nor Kiev have responded to this proposal in any way.
It is known that after the phone conversation with Putin, Trump spoke with a number of European leaders. Among his interlocutors were French President Emmanuel Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and, of course, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Interestingly, the American president did not talk to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. It was the head of the British government who made the harshest comments towards the Russian Federation in connection with the negotiations in Istanbul. He accused the Russian authorities of deliberately delaying the negotiation process. However, it is possible that this choice of interlocutors is also explained by the fact that the meeting with Trump took place on the eve of the adoption by the EU foreign ministers of the next, 17th package of sanctions. There were no restrictions against the Nord Stream consortium, which effectively meant a ban on restoring Russian gas supplies to Western Europe through pipelines laid under the Baltic Sea – Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. Von der Leyen said that such sanctions are planned to be introduced. Now, apparently, they have been postponed until the next sanctions package. And this year, the blacklist has been seriously expanded, which includes, for example, Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk.
At the same time, the threat of secondary sanctions against Russia has not been fulfilled in the United States. It probably won’t be completed in the near future. Trump himself spoke out against any anti-Russian sanctions until the negotiation process was completed. Talking to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House, he made another interesting confession. Trump said that there is a certain red line, after crossing which US sanctions against Russia will be imposed and in general the White House will adopt a tough tone in dealing with the Kremlin. However, the president stressed that he would not mention this “certain limit,” as “it would further complicate negotiations.”
The result of the negotiations between Putin and Trump was the emergence of the topic of a new prisoner exchange – nine for nine people. This is another intrigue of the negotiation process. To date, only one person can be named for sure, whom the Americans are highly likely to demand to be exchanged. This is David Barnes, a native of Texas, who was sentenced last year in Moscow to 21 years in prison on charges of pedophilia. In the United States, Senator John Cornyn, an influential member of the Republican Party, publicly stood up for him. He publicly suggested to Trump that Barnes be included in the exchange list. The senator considers the accusation against the Texan to be unfounded.
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The course of the negotiations was also monitored by the authors of Russian socio-political Telegram channels.
“Western media report the surprise of European leaders at Washington’s unwillingness to impose new sanctions against Russia following yesterday’s telephone conversation between Trump and Putin,” the authors of the Muesli Aloud channel note. – In this case, what should Washington do with its role in the Ukrainian crisis, given that it needs a constructive dialogue with Moscow on a host of other issues? Let’s assume that Trump decides not to abandon the instrument of economic sanctions as a way of putting pressure on Russia in the hope of getting some kind of compromise from her in negotiations with Kiev, but if possible, he will try to gradually crawl away from this toxic case. And if at the same time the US president receives the Nobel Prize as a “peacemaker”, then the Kremlin will also arrange this situation.”
“VTsIOM found out that Russian citizens are improving their attitude towards Ukraine. The share of those who consider the neighboring country to be hostile is 38%, and this is the minimum since Euromaidan. From the maximum recorded value of 53%, this indicator has decreased, in fact, by a third,” Temnik draws attention.