As Trump and Putin circle each other, an agenda that extends beyond Ukraine is emerging

They have been carefully circling each other for seven days now — sending out invitations to talk, mixing a few jabs with ego-stroking, suggesting that the only way to end the Ukrainian war is for the two to come together, likely without the Ukrainians. .

President Trump and Vladimir Putin, whose relationship was always a subject of mystery and psychodrama in Trump’s first term, are at it again. But it’s not a simple reboot. Mr. Trump was unusually harsh in his speech last week, saying that Mr. Putin It was “the destruction of Russia” And threatening to impose sanctions and tariffs on the country if it doesn’t come to the negotiating table — a rather empty threat given the small amount of trade between the United States and Russia these days.

In his usual measured and modest manner, Putin responded with the compliment, agreeing with Mr. Trump that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Mr. Trump had been president three years ago. He reiterated that he was ready to sit down and negotiate the fate of Europe, great power to great power, leader to leader.

They haven’t spoken yet, though Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday night: “He wants to talk, and we’ll talk soon.” As they set the stage for that first conversation, they are sending signals that they want to negotiate more than just Ukraine — a war that, in Putin’s telling, is just one of the arenas in which the West is waging its own battle. Against Russia.

Both men appear to envision taking over the entire relationship between Moscow and Washington, perhaps including reviving nuclear arms talks, a conversation that has an imminent deadline: the key treaty limiting both countries’ arsenals expires in about a year. Then, they will be free to pursue the kind of arms race the world has not seen since the deepest days of the Cold War.

Recalling talks with Putin in 2020, before his defeat in the US election that year, Trump insisted last week: “We want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible.” He seemed to assume that China would engage in the same conversation. (I’ve refused, at least so far.)

While he continued to use the word “nuclear disarmament,” Trump almost certainly meant negotiating a new agreement to reduce — not eliminate — stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons, which can cross continents. For his part, Putin spoke of reviving discussions on “strategic stability,” the technical term among negotiators in the talks that covers not only the number of nuclear weapons deployed on each side, but also where they are stationed and how they are inspected. And steps to deter their use.

The last tentative arms control talks ended shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Mr. Putin has since argued that any nuclear arms control talks must also include the war in Ukraine. The Biden administration has refused to conflate the two, fearing that Putin’s real goal is to trade the limits of his nuclear arsenal for territory he seized in Ukraine and other concessions.

But Trump appears to be open to broader negotiations, which is precisely what Putin wants, because it might enable him to make that trade-off.

It is unclear what long-term security guarantees, if any, Trump is willing to offer President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has insisted in recent days that he should have made a deal with Putin and avoided a devastating war.

Mr. Trump clearly wants to establish himself as a peacemaker: in his first term he suggested that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, and bringing some sort of end to Europe’s biggest war since World War II would strengthen his case. He seems uninterested in giving Ukraine a substantive role in the process, in contrast to former President Joe Biden, whose slogan was “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

“For all this rhetoric, the thing Putin wants to hear most is that this is a deal that Russia and the United States will make themselves,” said Stephen Sestanovich, an expert on Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former analyst. Official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Keith Kellogg, an 80-year-old retired general whom Trump has tapped to start the talks, insists the key will be the economy, not the victims. “When you look at Putin, you can’t just say, ‘Okay, stop the killing,’ because frankly, that’s not their mentality,” he said on Fox News last week. Mr. Trump “deals with war differently: He views the economy as part of that war.” Kellogg insists he will focus on reducing Russian oil revenues.

Mr. Putin, confident of his position on the battlefields of Ukraine despite Russia’s heavy losses, is trying to telegraph a wait-and-see approach to Mr. Trump. He said Russia’s war aims have not changed, and although it is ready to hold talks to end the fighting, it will only do so on its own terms.

Putin has strongly indicated that, at a minimum, he would demand the preservation of the roughly 20% of Ukraine that Russia now controls, as well as an agreement that would exclude Ukraine’s membership in NATO and limit the size of its military.

At the same time, Putin has made clear his eagerness to engage with Trump — and, more broadly, with the United States, after three years of diplomatic isolation by the Biden administration.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry S. Peskov tells reporters almost daily that Mr. Putin is ready to take Mr. Trump’s call. “We are waiting for the signals,” he said on Friday. “Everyone ready.”

Mr. Putin twice put himself out there last week to flatter Mr. Trump — a proven method for winning Mr. Trump’s support.

On Monday, the day of Trump’s inauguration, Trump held a televised meeting of the Russian Security Council — an event that typically occurs on Fridays and largely behind closed doors. He said Mr. Trump “showed courage” in surviving attempts on his life and achieved a “convincing victory.”

On Friday, in a thoughtful moment, Mr. Putin paused to answer a state television reporter’s question about Mr. Trump. Kremlin immediately to publish The video is on their website.

“Perhaps it would be better for us to meet and, based on today’s realities, talk calmly about all areas of interest to both the United States and Russia,” Putin said. He brushed off Mr. Trump’s threats of sanctions, called him “smart” and “pragmatic,” and spoke Mr. Trump’s language by saying the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.

Like Trump, Putin has signaled that he wants to discuss a much broader range of issues with Trump than just the war in Ukraine. In his remarks to state television on Friday, Putin said the Kremlin and the Trump administration could “jointly search for solutions to today’s key issues, including strategic stability and the economy.”

The “strategic stability” signal indicates potential interest in arms control talks, which the Kremlin briefly began with the Biden administration in 2021. “We discussed a range of arms control and nonproliferation issues, from artificial intelligence in weapons to renewing the New START treaty.” . Wendy Sherman, former Deputy Secretary of State, who conducted the talks on behalf of the US side, said in an email. (New START is an arms control treaty that has been partially suspended by Russia, expiring in February 2026.)

Ms Sherman noted that the talks had stalled before Putin’s “horrific invasion”.

Mr. Putin’s call for expanded talks has highlighted what appears to be his continued optimism about Mr. Trump, despite Mr. Trump’s harsh words on Russia last week and the fact that the president imposed a raft of new sanctions on Russia during his first term as president. .

Mr. Trump also attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week, essentially blaming him for not reaching a deal with Mr. Putin that could have avoided war.

“I could have made this deal so easily, and Zelensky decided I wanted to fight,” Trump told Fox host Sean Hannity.

He made it clear that he was not interested in Biden’s approach to supporting Ukraine as long as it was necessary. But with his tough rhetoric against Putin last week, Trump may be trying to show that he is not an easy opponent for the Russian leader, while bracing for the possibility that he will not be able to convince Putin to reach a deal that works for all parties. .

“To keep Putin off balance, Trump must show him that a deal is only possible if it makes sense for Ukraine and our allies,” Sestanovich said.

Even as Putin welcomes talks with Trump, Russian officials are not backing down from their overall message about the United States as a malign power — a sign of how the Kremlin is hedging its bets should discussions with Trump occur. Not going well.

Ms. Sherman, who has extensive experience negotiating with Russia, warns that if talks with Russia begin, the Trump administration must be ready. “Putin will want what he has always said he wants: as much territory as possible, no Ukraine to join NATO at all, no Western nuclear weapons in Europe that could target Russia.” Given this, she is betting that actually negotiating a follow-up to New START “is likely to be at the bottom of his list.”