Trump offers concessions to Putin over Ukraine peace deal

Gustaf Kilander, The Independent

Kremlin insiders spent Wednesday night laughing on Russian state TV after President Donald Trump handed his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, significant concessions in the upcoming peace talks over the war in Ukraine before the negotiations had even begun. Trump and his administration in recent days have put the kibosh on the notion that Ukraine could become a member of NATO and that it could take back territories currently under Russian control.

Propagandists on Russian state TV and radio broke into elated laughter as Ukraine and its allies were left bewildered. Olga Skabeeva, the host of the Russian state TV programme 60 Minutes, called the events “unthinkable” and “unimaginable,” according to Julia Davis, an analyst of Russian media, writing for The Daily Beast.

Skabeeva asked the network's Europe correspondent Mikhail Antonov: "What does it all mean? Ukraine is left without NATO? Ukraine is left without money?"

Antonov argued that the era of American dominance has ended. He added that Europe wouldn't be able to provide Ukraine with the same level of military assistance as the US as Skabeeva struggled to hide her glee.

Meanwhile, 60 Minutes co-host Evgeny Popov celebrated that Trump is doing Moscow's work for it by doing away with Western alliances and cutting Europe into pieces, which the Kremlin aimed to do from the beginning. Russian TV pundits have said for years that Trump's return to the White House would mean the end of US aid to Ukraine, which would turn the war in Russia's direction. But the experts appeared to marvel at the speed at which Trump seems to be doing Moscow's bidding and that he's treating Putin as his equal.

The Director General of Mosfilm, Karen Shakhnazarov, appeared on The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov Wednesday night, saying that regardless of what happens next, recent events are a "big success" for Russia.

"The president of the United States called the president of Russia. That alone is already a major success!" said Shakhnazarov, according to Davis.

"The blockade has been broken," he added. "It means a lot to all of them that the president of the United States, the mightiest nation in the West, as great as the Roman Empire, made this call. It's as if Julius Caesar himself telephoned a barbarian, a chieftain of some German tribe."

Meanwhile, Solovyov celebrated the claim by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the US would not adhere to NATO's Article 5 if Europe took on Russia militarily. The rule considers an attack on one NATO nation an attack on all.

Sergey Mikheyev, a political scientist, said, "In this situation, we should make it clear for the Europeans — now we can really strike Brussels, London, or Paris because we can forget about Article 5. You can forget the notion that Americans would step in on your behalf."

Soloyov also spoke on the radio show Full Contact on Thursday, sharing commentary by the network's US correspondent Valentin Bogdanov, who noted that "during negotiations, the victors are the ones dictating conditions. This is the foundation of diplomacy — and the entirety of what is being dictated should be said in the Russian language.”

Soloyov went on to claim that the phone call between Putin and Trump “has caused a total collapse of (Ukrianian President Volodymyr) Zelensky's world," adding that Europe is “insanely panicked.”

The pundit argued that Trump’s way of doing business adheres to Putin's December 2021 ultimatum, when he said that NATO expansion was one of the top reasons for the upcoming invasion of Ukraine. Soloyov boasted that the Trump administration has said on several occasions that Ukraine must hand over some territories to Russia, and he said his nation wasn’t going to cede any of the territory they have taken. Experts across the Russian media landscape pushed for the military to scramble to take as much Ukrainian territory as they can, as after Trump's negotiations with Putin, they expect that they will be able to hold onto the land without any significant repercussions.