The meeting between senior Russian ambassadors from the United States and Saudi Arabia could be the first step in the direction of an end to the conflict in Ukraine.
US and Soviet members reportedly agreed to work on both a peace agreement and to look into potential financial and investment options as a result of the almost five hours of speaks. Whatever the ultimate goal, Ukraine seems set to drop out.
The same cannot be said of the long-term owner of the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin has been pursuing what Donald Trump has given him for the past 20 years. Since Putin hailed the fall of the Soviet Union as” the greatest political crisis” of the 20th centuries, his foreign policy has always been about restoring at least some of the power position the Soviet Union enjoyed.
In some ways, the US government’s willingness to talk with Putin about bringing peace to Ukraine has given the Russian leader exactly what he desired: respect for and perhaps even fear for Moscow, as the Soviet Union again commanded from the West.
And in that impression, Trump’s telephone contact with the Kremlin represented a great triumph for Putin. Putin is currently awaiting a return offer to the best table of international politics. He has given up virtually all of the occupied Ukrainian country to travel there. He has not even offered to retake any of the territory that the Russian troops have taken since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Then his foreign secretary, Sergei Lavrov, is talking to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio. While the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which is when Russia’s conflict with Ukraine really began, seems to be getting more and more unnoticed.
The advice from the US defence secretary, Pete Hesgeth, last week that a profit to Ukraine’s pre-2014 edges was “unrealistic” has made clear Washington’s present perspective on that.
So far, so excellent for Putin, who sees the Western alliance beginning to crack after three years of being criticized against him, albeit with varying levels of enthusiasm and commitment.
Washington’s approach to Ukraine is showing signs of major divergence from that of the Union or the UK under Trump. Puntin undoubtedly understands that starting now will lead to longer-term success rather than be cowed by American stress.
The two leaders have now come to a consensus to join, which is a perfect turnaround from Joe Biden’s three years of growing isolation. And, as we know, the first time the two officials met for a conference, in Helsinki in 2018, Putin was widely seen as having outwitted Trump.
As Trump’s then-senior chairman for European and Russian Affairs, Fiona Hill, recalled in her autobiography:” As Trump responded that he believed Putin over his own intellect experts, I wanted to end the whole thing”.
Putin will hardly ever think opponent in any upcoming negotiations. Putin has fulfilled portion of his long-term objective by simply being there to examine the most pressing issue for the future of European stability with the US leader. Officials from the Kremlin and the White House did meet to discuss European politics as the continent’s dominant capabilities, just like in the Soviet Union’s days.
The opinions of Germans themselves, especially Ukrainians, are extra.
Back to the top board
If Putin’s mourn for a lost power in 2005 provided a glimpse into the course of his reign as the leader of Soviet power, he also provided additional clues on the night of the full-scale invasion. Putin expressed regret over the resurrected Soviet Union in December 2021.
He continued,” We turned into a totally different state,” adding that it had a significance well beyond the era in which it occurred. And what had been built up over 1, 000 times was essentially lost”.
Weeks later, with anticipation growing that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine, the foreign ministry in Moscow , published , a file called the Treaty between The United States of America and the Russian Federation on surveillance offers.
The language used today is impressive because of the references to the Soviet Union, as stated in article 4:” The United States of America may undertake to avoid further east expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny entry to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
The Biden presidency criticized the agreement as teasing. But Hegseth’s new note,” The United States does not think that NATO membership for Ukraine is a practical outcome of a negotiated arrangement”, fits right in with Putin’s wish list.
Russia is attempting to surpass the Soviet Union in global prestige. Additionally, it involves a significant change in activities that favors Putin.
For three years, I have been working on a book, The Transfer of Russia: From Yeltsin to Putin, the Story of a Angry Kremlin.
My studies included interviews with leading politicians, among them Jens Stoltenberg, who served as secretary standard of NATO between 2014 and 2024. I asked him how he saw the upcoming month of the Ukrainian war when we spoke in September 2023. He told me:
Only the Russians have the authority to decide what constitutes an appropriate option. However, the more experienced they are on the field, the more effective they will be at the desk of negotiations, so we have a responsibility to support them. However, it’s up to Ukraine to make the difficult decisions on the battlefield. And of course, at the end of the bargaining process.
Trump’s approach to reaching a deal seems to disregard that logic, which favors Putin before the negotiations even begin.
There is nothing to suggest that Putin’s extended view of history won’t encourage him to go to war once more in a few years, if it does put an end to the battle right away. Additionally, he’ll be more ready than he has been in the previous three bloody years to conquer more territory.
James Rodgers is audience in foreign media, City St George’s, University of London
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