By Jim Geraghty
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
The timeline of Tuesday’s events is important.
At 10 a.m. Eastern, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin began
their phone call.
At 1:26 p.m. Eastern, the Kremlin posted its
readout of the call to Telegram. The key points, translated into English:
In the context of the US
President’s initiative to introduce a 30-day ceasefire, the Russian side
outlined a number of significant points concerning ensuring effective control
over a possible ceasefire along the entire line of combat contact, the need to
stop forced mobilization in Ukraine and rearm the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Serious risks associated with the inability to negotiate of the Kyiv regime,
which has repeatedly sabotaged and violated the agreements reached, were also
noted. Attention was drawn to the barbaric terrorist crimes committed by
Ukrainian militants against the civilian population of the Kursk region.
It was emphasized that the key
condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict and working towards its
resolution through political and diplomatic means should be the complete
cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence information
to Kyiv. . . .
During the conversation, Donald
Trump put forward a proposal for the parties to the conflict to mutually
refrain from attacks on energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days. Vladimir
Putin responded positively to this initiative and immediately gave the Russian
military the corresponding order.
In other words, Putin initially laid out preconditions
that had to be met in order begin the 30-day cease-fire — most notably, halting
all U.S. and NATO military aid and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine. (For
obvious reasons, this requirement is extraordinarily unlikely to ever be
acceptable to the Ukrainian government.) But later in the call, the Russian
Foreign Ministry stated Putin agreed to refrain from attacks on energy
infrastructure facilities for 30 days and gave his military the order to comply.
Remember, this is the Russian account of the call, not the American one.
At 1:28 p.m. Eastern, White House Press Secretary
Caroline Leavitt posts the White
House readout of the call:
Today, President Trump and
President Putin spoke about the need for peace and a ceasefire in the Ukraine
war. Both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace. They
also stressed the need for improved bilateral relations between the United
States and Russia. The blood and treasure that both Ukraine and Russia have
been spending in this war would be better spent on the needs of their people.
This conflict should never have started and should have been ended long ago
with sincere and good faith peace efforts. The leaders agreed that the movement
to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as
technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black
Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace. These negotiations will begin
immediately in the Middle East. The leaders spoke broadly about the Middle East
as a region of potential cooperation to prevent future conflicts.
They further discussed the need
to stop proliferation of strategic weapons and will engage with others to
ensure the broadest possible application. The two leaders shared the view that
Iran should never be in a position to destroy Israel. The two leaders agreed
that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the United States
and Russia has huge upside. This includes enormous economic deals and
geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved.
Note that that description of the call states, “the
movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire,” but
does not specify when that cease-fire would begin. Also, there is no mention of
Putin’s initial preconditions of halting U.S. and NATO aid and intelligence.
Yesterday,
Kyiv-based JP Lindsley noticed that Putin’s seeming
concessions are a pair of diminishing assets. Ukrainian forces, using drones
and nothing resembling a traditional navy, have chased the Russian Navy out of most of the Black Sea, so a “maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea” isn’t giving up
much. And targeting energy infrastructure is most valuable in late autumn and
winter. With weather getting warmer, the consequences of shutting down the
electricity and natural gas is at least somewhat mitigated.
Sometime Tuesday afternoon, “shortly after the two-hour
call between Trump and Putin,” Trump granted an exclusive interview to our old friend Byron York of the Washington Examiner. Trump revealed that he had been speaking to Putin for weeks,
and boasted, “it’s a big thing — an immediate ceasefire on energy and
infrastructure.”
“It was a very good call,” Trump told the Examiner.
“I think it’s the beginning of something good. The beginning really took place
three or four weeks ago. You know, I’ve spoken to Putin over — this isn’t just
a call that began it. We’ve had other calls.” Trump added, “the next thing
would be a full ceasefire and a deal.”
At 2:49 p.m. Eastern, Trump posted on Truth Social:
My phone conversation today with
President Putin of Russia was a very good and productive one. We agreed to an
immediate Ceasefire on all Energy and Infrastructure, with an understanding
that we will be working quickly to have a Complete Ceasefire and, ultimately,
an END to this very horrible War between Russia and Ukraine. This War would
have never started if I were President! Many elements of a Contract for Peace
were discussed, including the fact that thousands of soldiers are being killed,
and both President Putin and President Zelenskyy would like to see it end. That
process is now in full force and effect, and we will, hopefully, for the sake
of Humanity, get the job done!
Note that Trump did not mention the Russian preconditions
of halting U.S. and NATO aid and intelligence.
At
3:37 p.m. Eastern, about two hours after the Russian Foreign Ministry said
Putin had ordered the Russian military to refrain from hitting energy and
infrastructure, a Russian guided bomb knocked
out the electrical power in half of the Ukrainian city of Slovyansk.
By 6 p.m. Eastern, air-raid alerts covered more than half
of Ukraine, with a combination of ballistic missiles, Shahed drones, and other
unmanned aerial vehicles incoming.
By 6:11 p.m. Eastern, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky reported, “A direct hit by a ‘Shahed’ drone on
a hospital in Sumy, strikes on cities in the Donetsk region, and attack drones
currently in the skies over the Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava,
Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.”
Bombing a hospital is a war crime. As I recalled when
visiting a hospital on the Ukrainian side of the border with Kursk Oblast last
month, Human Rights Watch calculated that as
of July 2024, at least 1,736 medical facilities in Ukraine have been damaged or
destroyed by Russian bombs, drones, mortars, etc. Russia only commits war
crimes in days ending with a “y.”
By Tuesday evening, Trump sat for an
interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News Channel, and said:
Trump: We had a great
call. It lasted almost two hours — talked about a lot of things and toward
getting it to peace and we talked about other things also.
Ingraham: [Were] there
non-negotiables mentioned by Putin? It was reported that, I think, the Kremlin
media actually stated that he demanded an immediate cessation of aid to Ukraine
in order to get to this multi-step deal. . . .
Trump: No. he didn’t. We
didn’t talk about aid — actually, we didn’t talk about aid at all. We talked
about a lot of things, but aid was never discussed.
Wednesday morning, German Defense
Minister Boris Pistorius said in a TV interview, “We’ve seen that attacks
on civilian infrastructure have not eased at all in the first night after this
supposedly ground-breaking, great phone call,” between Putin and Trump. “Putin
is playing a game.”
Putin told Trump exactly what he wanted to hear,
appearing to agree to a cease-fire for energy and infrastructure. Immediately
after Putin’s seeming acceptance of the energy-focused cease-fire and breaking
it, Trump raced to the Examiner and Truth Social to tell the world about
what a great deal he had just negotiated with the Russian leader. And then,
within a few hours of hanging up the phone, Putin launched the widest-ranging
air attack on Ukraine in many weeks and hit Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
It turns out Vladimir Putin makes promises he never
intended to keep. But hey, who could
have possibly foreseen that, right?
Former
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson: “What a surprise — Putin
rejects an unconditional ceasefire. He wants to keep bombing and killing
innocent Ukrainians. He wants Ukraine disarmed. He wants Ukraine neutralized.
He wants to make Ukraine a vassal state of Russia. He isn’t negotiating. He’s
laughing at us.”
I would love to report that Donald Trump, whose name is
on the cover of The Art of the Deal, worked out some ingenious win-win
arrangement that ended the war and preserved an independent and free Ukraine,
or even that he had negotiated a temporary respite from the fighting, so each
side could tend to their wounded and build up their defenses.
But that is not the case. Putin played Trump like a
fiddle, offering him platitudes and the mirage of a small concession, which
Trump rushed to announce to the world as a great diplomatic breakthrough. Now
Trump looks like a sucker, a man easily fooled by promises.
What’s Trump going to do, admit he got duped? Turn
against Putin? Send new kinds of weapons to the Ukrainians to show Putin there
are serious consequences for jerking him around?
I’d love to see it, but Trump’s record in recent months
suggests he will double down on punishing the Ukrainians and look for more
concessions to make to Putin.
And it is long past time to stop getting mad at those of
us who have the audacity to point out that the strategy of offering Putin
ever-higher piles of carrots and never threatening with any sticks isn’t
working.
It’s not that hard to find people still insisting that
Trump is playing seven-level chess, that those contending Putin has rejected
the cease-fire proposal are just whiny kids asking “are we there yet?,” that
the war is driven by Russia’s legitimate interests, and that Trump has this all
figured out.
Judging from recent polling, these are the perspectives of
a small minority of Americans; loud, but not numerous:
Sixty-one percent of registered
voters choose Ukraine when asked which of the two countries has their
sympathies more, while just two percent say Russia. Another 35 percent say they
are more sympathetic to neither side, while two percent are not sure.
Fifty-five percent of registered
voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war between Russia and Ukraine,
while 42 percent approve of it.
When asked to evaluate the kind
of change Trump is bringing to America’s handling of the war between Russia and
Ukraine, 41 percent of registered voters say Trump is bringing the right kind
of change, 34 percent say he is bringing the wrong kind and 22 percent say he
isn’t bringing any change.
And U.S. voters give Ukraine and
Zelenskyy far higher positive marks than Russian President Vladimir Putin and
his country. Forty-six percent of voters say they view Zelenskyy favorably and
32 percent view him negatively, close to the 41 percent who view Ukraine
positively and 28 percent who view the country negatively.
Just 6 percent view Russia
positively and 68 percent view it negatively, while 3 percent view Putin
positively and 84 percent view him negatively.
ADDENDUM: In other Trump administration policy decisions regarding Russia:
The Trump administration has
terminated a U.S.-funded initiative that documents alleged Russian war crimes,
including a sensitive database detailing the mass deportation of Ukrainian
children to Russia, according to U.S. officials familiar with the directive and
documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The move has barred the
transmission of evidence to prosecutors pursuing multiple criminal cases,
including the International Criminal Court’s landmark indictment of Russian
President Vladimir Putin for what it has called the “unlawful transfer” of
children from occupied areas of Ukraine, U.S. officials said.
Researchers and experts involved
in the initiative, spearheaded by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab,
were informed last month that the State Department had quietly terminated their
contract — one of thousands eliminated at the behest of Trump appointee Peter Marocco and the U.S. DOGE
Service, the budget-slashing arm of tech billionaire Elon Musk.
At that time, the researchers
lost access to a trove of information, including satellite imagery and
biometric data tracking the identities and locations of as many as 35,000
children from Ukraine.
Most alarming to U.S. lawmakers
briefed on the matter is the suspected deletion of the research lab’s database
amid the scramble to comply with the administration’s termination notice — an
action likely to set back efforts to find the missing children and hold to
account those responsible for their abduction.
“We have reason to believe that
the data from the repository has been permanently deleted,” a group of
lawmakers led by Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) warned in a letter to Secretary of
State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “If true, this would
have devastating consequences.”
The policy of this administration is to be as helpful as
possible to Vladmir Putin and as hurtful as possible to the Ukrainian people.
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