Vladimir Putin was enjoying himself. On stage at an annual meeting of Russian industrialists and entrepreneurs in Moscow on 18 March, the Russian leader had been holding forth for close to an hour when the host, Alexander Shokhin, suggested it was time to wrap things up. Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, had reminded him that he was due to speak to Donald Trump at that very moment, Shokhin said, looking nervously at his watch. “Never mind,” Putin said, waving away Shokin’s concern. “That’s his job.” The audience erupted in laughter. Putin clarified that he was talking about Peskov, but the joke was on Trump. The underlying message was clear: Putin was in no particular hurry to talk to the US president.
When the two leaders did speak an hour later, Putin’s nonchalance turned out to be justified. Where Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had been shouted down and kicked out of the White House after raising the question of security guarantees with Trump in February, Putin earned praise. Commending their “very good and productive” conversation afterwards, Trump announced on social media that they had agreed “an immediate Ceasefire on all Energy and Infrastructure”, with the understanding that they would then be “working quickly to have a Complete Ceasefire and, ultimately, an END to this very horrible War”.
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