Russia has won a war against the West: What the Putin-Trump call really means writes Tarik Cyril Amar. The new reality is that the West can be stopped and made to negotiate on its “adversary’s” terms.
It’s obviously good news for the world that the US has finally ended its perverse policy of anti-diplomacy (its absurd essence: When there’s a really dangerous problem, do not try to solve it by communicating) regarding Russia, the other great power with a massive nuclear arsenal.
But let’s not forget the even bigger picture: US President Donald Trump will not (and cannot) admit it – and Russian President Vladimir Putin is wise enough to not rub it in – but the single most important take-away from yesterday’s phone conversation is that Russia has won a war against the West.
Yes, it was a half-proxy war (that is, by proxy for the West, often half-heartedly, while very direct for both Russia and Ukraine), but that makes little geopolitical difference now. The West has been asking for this defeat. It could have easily been avoided, either by finding a compromise with Russia earlier or by staying out of the fight between Moscow and Kiev. But now things are what they are and the new reality is that the West can be stopped and forced to negotiate on its opponent’s (in this case, Russia’s) terms – and that the whole world knows this now as a tested, empirical fact. This is a historic turning point, and also good news for humanity. The reverberations will be felt for decades.
Ukrainians have been used and sold out. Those few in the West warning that this would happen were systematically maligned and sidelined. But now it will be Ukraine’s false ‘friends’ (and their own US- and Canadian-based diaspora) who should have a reckoning coming. So does the Kiev regime. The tragedy of Ukraine is immense, and it was unnecessary. In Ukraine, this, too, will become a historic turning point, and will have long-lasting consequences.
What will happen between the US and Russia is not yet predictable, but a broader détente is possible. The perversely, self-destructively, treasonously obedient EU elites, in any case, will learn what it feels like to be first used and then ignored, just like Ukraine. The worst thing they could do – and as things currently stand, something they might actually do – is let the US ‘Europeanize’ the war. The Biden administration has done a brilliant job wrecking its EU-NATO vassals. Trump might complete it by luring them into the trap of trying to tangle with Russia on their own – while Washington and Moscow make up, as they should.
Fyodor Lukyanov writes: US-Russian relations will now return to their ‘factory settings’, but the key here is the end of Western overreach.
The long-anticipated phone call between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump has finally taken place, sending shock waves through the geopolitical landscape. But before anyone gets carried away with triumph or despair, it’s worth recognizing what has actually happened: Russian-US relations have simply returned to their natural state – one of strategic rivalry, conflicting interests, and fundamental differences in worldview.
For decades, the US pursued a fantasy – one where it could reshape Russia in its own image, first through incentives and later through coercion. Washington believed it could mold Moscow into a compliant partner within the ‘liberal international order’, an illusion that only collapsed when reality hit: Russia was never going to be remade. Meanwhile, Moscow spent years trying to find common ground, adjusting its own policies in hopes of reaching a workable coexistence. That experiment, too, ended a decade ago.
The dissolution of the Cold War system in the late 1980s was a historical anomaly, a fluke that many mistook for a permanent transformation. The Western narrative of ‘victory’ was premature – history does not end, it evolves. Over time, the illusion of a unipolar world became harder to sustain, and the global balance of power began shifting. Those who benefited from the old order clung to it desperately, while those who felt shortchanged pushed back harder. Ukraine became the unfortunate fault line in this struggle, the battleground of irreconcilable visions.
What is happening now is not the beginning of a new era but the inevitable correction of an old one. The US, even under Trump’s presidency, has recognized that great power rivalry is once again the defining feature of international politics. But unlike previous decades, when ideological battles masked geopolitical interests, the new competition is more pragmatic, stripped of the pretense of universal values. The liberal world order is no longer a guiding principle – it is a relic of the past.
This shift does not guarantee peace, nor does it eliminate the risks of confrontation. But it does bring a certain rationality back into the equation. The West’s ideological zeal, which often led it to take reckless, counterproductive actions, is giving way to a more sober assessment of power and interests. The focus is no longer on forcing one side to submit, but on negotiating tangible advantages.
Russia, meanwhile, is positioned as a key player in shaping this new world order. The strategic fantasies of the 1990s have been replaced with a hard-nosed realism that acknowledges the limits of Western power. The reset to ‘factory settings’ does not mean stability – it means a return to the fundamentals of global politics, where strength, influence, and calculated diplomacy dictate the course of history.
US-Russian relations will now return to their ‘factory settings’, but the key here is the end of Western overreach Read Full Article at RT.com
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‘Best day’ for Russia, ‘sell-out’ of Ukraine and EU dismay: Global media reacts to Trump-Putin call
The historic talks left Kiev’s backers in shock while raising the prospect of a “grim” peace deal, Western outlets argue
The historic phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, over the fate of Ukraine has left Kiev out in the cold, upended US relations with the EU, and is a major diplomatic coup for Russia, several global media outlets have argued.
On Wednesday, Moscow and Washington confirmed that the two leaders held a highly productive 90-minute conversation, marking the first time a US president has negotiated with his Russian counterpart since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
Following the call, Trump signaled that he is “OK” with keeping Ukraine out of NATO, which has been one of Russia’s concerns for years. He also suggested it is “unlikely” that Kiev will regain all of the territory it has lost to Russia over the past decade.
While Trump dismissed the idea that he is “freezing out” Vladimir Zelensky from the peace process and confirmed that the two had spoken after the Putin call, he suggested that the Ukrainian leader will have to hold elections at some point. Zelensky’s term as president expired in May 2024, with Moscow considering him “illegitimate.”
The phone call sent shock waves through the global media, which almost universally portrayed it as a blow to Ukraine and EU countries and a victory for Russia.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph published an article titled ‘This is Putin and Trump’s world now’, arguing that the US leader had trampled on the Biden-era principle of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
The paper added that if Russian and American teams have indeed started negotiations, “it is a great victory for Putin’s world view” and “a grim deal that will reward Russia with stolen land and leave Ukraine vulnerable to a second attack in years to come.”
Politico described the Trump-Putin call as “the moment Europeans and Ukrainians have been dreading for months, if not years,” adding that when it finally came, it “still left Ukraine’s allies in shock.” Bloomberg echoed this, with its sources claiming that Washington’s key allies “had gotten no notice” of the negotiations.
One unnamed European supporter of Ukraine called the phone call “a sell-out,” arguing that the US had caved in to Putin’s key demands even before the talks could start in earnest, as cited by Bloomberg.
CNN called the renewed engagement “the best day for Putin since the invasion,” suggesting that the phone call was a watershed after which “US relations with Europe will never be the same.”
Trump, the network argued, “deprived the Ukrainians of a bargaining chip that could have been used to win concessions from his old friend Putin,” adding that the US president seems to believe that great powers – including Russia – “are entitled to expansionism in their regional areas of influence.”
According to the Washington Post, the call was a “breakthrough” for Putin, ending “nearly three years of near isolation from Western leaders.” It added that in any peace deal, Trump is likely to agree to Russia retaining control of “some or all of the Ukrainian territory it has captured since 2022.”
The Financial Times reported, citing a number of senior EU officials, that the bloc’s policymakers now expect Trump “to tell them they must pay for Ukrainian reconstruction and deploy troops there to maintain a peace deal in which they would not be involved.”
One FT source predicted that the conundrum would be “a real test of unity” for the bloc. “Trump sees us as money. And frankly we haven’t been clear on what our seat at the table would look like in exchange for that money,” he reportedly said.
In a separate analysis, Bloomberg calculated that protecting Ukraine and strengthening the EU’s military could cost the bloc an additional $3.1 trillion over the next ten years.
The Trump-Putin call is widely seen as a blow to Ukraine and the EU, and a breakthrough for Russia, Western outlets say Read Full Article at RT.com
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