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Putin’s Still In Charge

Photo Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Alexander Kazakov / AFP / Getty.

Photo Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Alexander Kazakov / AFP / Getty.

Today’s phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump was a painful reminder that Trump is the junior partner in the Russian-American relationship and that Putin will continue his mass-murder campaign in Ukraine for as long as he can get away with it. Nothing else of substance emerged from the call. When it comes to Europe’s largest armed conflict since World War II, Putin’s still in charge.

Putin, exuding confidence, got out ahead of Trump just minutes after the call and talked in person to the media, which allowed him the first move in framing the discussion. (Today’s Russian autocrats understand public relations far better than their dour Soviet predecessors.) Putin’s quick personal readout of the call was a perfect nothingburger:

 

We have agreed with the president of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace accord, defining a number of positions, such as, for example, the principles of settlement, the timing of a possible peace agreement.

 

I speak Russian, but no translator is needed here: This is the universal language of political stalling. “Russia will propose” means “We’ll drag our feet and then whip up an unacceptable set of talking points.” “Ready to work on a memorandum” means “We’ll agree in principle to talk about talking about stuff.” “Defining a number of positions” means “We’ll come up with a list of nonstarter conditions.” And “the timing of a possible peace agreement” means “We’ll set up some unattainable schedule date for a cease-fire and then scuttle it.”

The official account of Putin’s remarks, released later by the Russian news service TASS, was even less conciliatory, pointedly excluding the reference to agreeing with the American president. But none of it matters: Trump spent more than two hours on the phone with Putin, and he got exactly nothing.

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Author: Tom Nichols

Source: The Atlantic

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