Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has led an international campaign to shun and isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Former U.S. president Joe Biden did not talk to Putin once after the war began.
That policy of isolation is now over. On February 12, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that he had a “lengthy and highly productive phone call” with Putin.
But Trump did not just open the door a cautious crack. He flung it wide. He did not just agree to further phone calls: he agreed that he would go to Moscow and Putin would come to Washington: “We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations.” More importantly still, Trump appeared to extend an invitation to welcome Russia back into the international community. He says that he and Putin “talked about… the great benefit that we will someday have in working together.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said that Trump and Putin’s phone call lasted almost an hour and a half and that they had agreed that “the time has come for our countries to work together.”
On the same day that Trump spoke to Putin, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was speaking to NATO and Ukrainian defense ministers. He offered the clearest yet revelation of Trump’s position.
Trump and Hegseth’s statements combined provide a glimpse of the parameters of the peace plan. Hegseth clearly stated that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.” That blow to Ukraine dovetails with Peskov’s statement that during the phone call, “Vladimir Putin, for his part, mentioned the need to eliminate the root causes of the conflict.” Those statements combined suggest a clear path for Putin to achieve his key goal in going to war: to receive a written guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO.
Hellbound and Down 