Trump Calls Putin: Moscow Smells Weakness
Trump's peace envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had just left the Ukrainian capital when the missile strikes resumed.
Trump Calls Putin: Moscow Smells Weakness
Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin in an hour-long phone call that he wants to restore ties between Washington and Moscow, according to the Kremlin — a disclosure that landed while Russian ballistic missiles were still falling on Ukrainian cities, per Reuters and The Mirror.
Putin, for his part, assured Trump that Russia harbours no aggressive intentions toward Europe. The assurance cost him nothing. Moscow has made similar claims before every escalation of the past four years, and the architecture of that claim — offered directly to a US president who has consistently framed the war as someone else's problem — carries a weight that extends well beyond Kyiv.
The timing is the story. Trump's peace envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had just left the Ukrainian capital when the missile strikes resumed. Russia had agreed to pause bombing during their visit. The pause lasted exactly as long as it was useful.
Hungary, meanwhile, expelled ten Russian diplomats for what Budapest called "unacceptable" activities. Moscow's foreign minister responded by promising a "harsh and painful" response, warning against what he called a "Russophobic lobby in Budapest" — language calibrated less for Budapest than for every other European capital watching to see what expelling a Russian diplomat now costs.
What it costs is the question nobody in the room wants to answer. Trump is building a relationship. Putin is building a record. These are not the same project.
