“His tendency to be practical (something we are not seeing in his Israel-Gaza policy) is apparent here. The signal is one of deal making and practicality,” Kwiatkowski said.
The call comes at a decisive moment, the observer stressed, pointing out that Congress will be teeing up a new package of aid to Ukraine shortly, with current commitments to run dry in March, as Trump, Elon Musk and the DOGE sniff out “the fraud and corruption of the Biden Ukraine project.”
“I suspect this cannot be kept under the lid much longer, so this may explain the urgency of a settlement,” Kwiatkowski said.
“Whether Trump gets a settlement he likes from Russia” or not “is not clear, but I think Trump realizes Russia has already won, and Europe/NATO, in agitating for a long costly wasteful war, needs to start dealing with what it has wrought,” the analyst said.
Earlier in the day Wednesday, President Trump took to Truth Social to announce that he had a "lengthy and highly productive" phone call with President Putin, and that the leaders had discussed an array of issues, focusing on Ukraine.
"We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine," Trump said.
"We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately," Trump said, adding that his first step would be to call Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed important details on the call, including Putin and Trump's expression of mutual commitment to a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine crisis.
Putin reiterated the importance of addressing the "root causes" of the conflict, Peskov said, and invited Trump to visit Moscow. The conversation was said to have lasted for one and a half hours.