For three years, the leaders of the United States and Russia did not speak directly, until this Wednesday, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, who took office in the White House less than a month ago, did so by phone.

The main topic of the conversation was achieving peace in Ukraine, which Donald Trump announced during the election campaign that he planned to do as soon as he returned to the White House. The Kremlin announced the conversation between Trump and Vladimir Putin in a short statement, and Trump in a post on his social network Truth Social. He described the conversation as “long and very productive,” which he then reported to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Regarding the latest conversation, Trump wrote that "he (Zelensky), like Russian President Putin, wants peace. But Trump insists that achieving peace means that Ukraine will not get back all of its territory and that NATO's doors remain closed to it," the report said. N1. 

Without consulting with allies

It is quite clear that such a plan is not what Ukraine, the European Union and NATO, and partly the United States, have insisted on so far while Joe Biden was at the helm.

"The very fact that Putin and Trump spoke without Trump consulting with allies first clearly shows the direction in which Trump's thoughts and actions are moving," international politics expert Bozo Kovacevic tells us.

"Trump informed all European allies or NATO allies, through the Secretary of Defense, that Ukraine's membership in NATO is out of the question and that it is unrealistic to expect the return of Ukrainian sovereignty to the framework it was in until 2014," he adds.

Trump is ready to make concessions to Russia

Kovačević points out that the very content of the conversation with Putin, as he presented it, suggests that Trump, at least in words, is ready to make major concessions.

“Both mentioned the glorious past and the joint struggle of the then Soviet Union and the United States against Nazism. By agreeing to such a conversation and evoking those memories, Trump made a concession to Putin because Putin repeatedly calls the authorities in Kiev Nazis. This suggests that both agreed to accept this element of the Russian strategy as a negotiating strategy for Ukraine. “That is why Russia and America are negotiating for Ukraine, which will only be informed about the results of those talks,” notes Kovačević.

"In all relations, except with China, the US is a stronger partner"

If events unfold in this way, NATO and Europe could be sidelined. We asked Kovačević if this is a return to Cold War positions of power.

“During the Cold War, NATO was not only an instrument for pursuing American interests, but also a mechanism for deterring the Soviet Union from attacking Western Europe. So, NATO was a mechanism for protecting Western Europe. Trump apparently no longer sees it as in America’s interest to protect Europe unless Europe is willing to pay for that protection. His approach is very simple: Europe cannot defend itself in the event of a possible war with Russia, but America can. “But for America to do that, Europe has to pay for it,” he points out.