Vladimir Putin on Wednesday achieved his most significant diplomatic breakthrough yet in a three-year war that, at times, seemed to threaten his regime.
During a 90-minute call with Donald Trump, Putin felt his long-sought vision taking shape: two great powers determining Ukraine’s fate over Kyiv’s head – and that of its European allies.
“A direct call with Trump was precisely what Putin had been waiting for,” said a source in the Russian foreign policy establishment. “It is only the start of the negotiations, but Putin has won the first round,” the source added.
Despite catastrophic setbacks at the start of his invasion, record losses, and mounting economic strain, the Russian president will feel that momentum has firmly shifted in his favour, with growing hopes in Moscow that the Trump administration could help achieve Russia’s objectives in Ukraine.
“Putin remained patient and didn’t bend. Instead, he waited for the world to change around him,” the foreign policy source said, referring to Trump’s election and his administration’s radically different foreign policy outlook.
The call between the two leaders took place just hours after the US defence secretary told officials in Brussels that Ukraine would need to abandon its ambitions of joining Nato and accept territorial losses, in effect conceding to some of Russia’s demands even before negotiations began.
Viewed as a whole, the rapidly unfolding events will probably be seen in Moscow as the culmination of Putin’s months-long diplomatic overtures to Trump, during which he lauded the president’s braveness and intelligence and echoed some of his favourite narratives, including unfounded claims that the 2020 US election was stolen from Trump.
“Now, Putin’s main focus is Trump – everyone else is irrelevant,” the foreign policy source said. “His next move is to secure a closed-door meeting with Trump, where he can further press his case,” the source added, saying they believed the two leaders could soon meet for a summit in Saudi Arabia.
The mood in Moscow’s political circles was buoyant on Thursday morning. Several pro-Kremlin observers pointed to the timing of the call between the two leaders, noting that Trump only informed Volodymyr Zelenskyy afterwards, in effect imposing the terms of the conversation on the Ukrainian president.
“Zelenskyy had repeatedly urged Trump to speak with him first before engaging with Putin. Instead, Trump did the exact opposite,” gloated Sergei Markov, a popular Russian commentator.
Many also celebrated Putin’s invitation for the US president to visit Moscow, which the Kremlin later hinted was for the 9 May Victory Day parade.
The once-unthinkable image of a US leader seated beside Putin, watching Russian soldiers who fought in Ukraine march across Red Square in the country’s grandest display of power, no longer feels so far-fetched. If it came to pass, it would deal a devastating blow to the west’s three-year effort to diplomatically isolate the Russian president.
“The promise to exchange visits is a victory for Putin. Any dictatorship sees a visit from the US president as the highest form of international legitimacy, almost a magical ritual that lifts a diplomatic curse,” said Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thinktank.
Russian officials were quick to highlight Europe’s complete exclusion from the peace talks, as European leaders struggled to come to terms with being sidelined.
“Frigid spinster Europe is mad with jealousy and rage,” said the former president Russian Dmitry Medvedev. “It’s been shown its real place; its time is over.”
Summing up the day, the state TV host Evgeny Popov declared on Wednesday that Trump was in effect doing Moscow’s job by tearing the western world apart. “We wanted to chainsaw the western world into pieces, but he decided to cut through it himself,” Popov cheered.
In a tangible sign of optimism from Moscow’s business community, the Moscow exchange surged more than 6% on Thursday, while the rouble climbed to its strongest level since the summer. Shares of big Russian companies, including Gazprom and Rostelecom, jumped by more than 8%, as businesses anticipated that a potential peace deal could reverse some of the thousands of sanctions imposed on the country.
“Investors dreamed about this scenario but did not really believe it was possible,” the Cifa Broker chief analyst, Ovanes Oganisyan, told the business newspaper Kommersant.
Still, observers in and outside Moscow believe negotiations could be drawn out and fraught with uncertainty, with Russian success far from guaranteed. In its readout on Wednesday, the Kremlin struck a sober tone while maintaining a maximalist stance, with Putin saying he had “mentioned the need to eliminate the root causes of the conflict”.
In Kremlin parlance, this signals that Putin is likely to push for greater territorial control in Ukraine beyond what Russia now holds, as well as demand regime change in Kyiv – conditions that even a Trump administration may struggle to accept.
Few believe Putin would ever agree to the prospect of tens of thousands of European peacekeeping troops on Russia’s border, a scenario proposed by Hegseth on Wednesday.
“The positions of the parties differ significantly and, at this moment, seem incompatible,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a prominent Russian political analyst and the founder of R Politik, a political analysis company.
“For Putin, a real solution means a Ukraine that is ‘friendly’ to Russia – deprived of military capability, which has a rewritten constitution and guarantees non-membership in Nato.”
Stanovaya said Putin was “fully prepared” for the talks to collapse and to press ahead with the fighting, confident in his battlefield superiority and bolstered by Trump’s reluctance to supply Ukraine with additional weapons. “From the Kremlin’s perspective, there is nothing the west can do that would reverse Russia’s territorial gains and prevent Ukraine’s collapse in the long run,” she said.
There were also grumblings about the phone call and the possibility of peace talks from Russia’s far-right camp, which has gained significant influence over the course of the war. “Trump will ‘allow’ Russia to take what it has conquered – but no more, of course. Meanwhile, he’ll offer Ukraine some guarantees,” said the prominent Russian ultranationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin on his Telegram channel.
“He’ll plant himself right in the middle of our Ukraine. Let me remind you, all of Ukraine is ours. All of Ukraine is Russian land,” Prilepin said.
Putin has largely embraced Russia’s fiercely pro-war faction, though he has, at times, purged those who have criticised his leadership for being too lenient in prosecuting the war.
Still, for now, optimism in Moscow prevails. “At times, many in the elites questioned whether it was wise for Putin to start the war or not settle for peace earlier,” said a well-connected businessman in Moscow. “Now, few are asking that question – his gamble is starting to pay off.”
