Putin has upper hand in Trump talks on elusive Ukraine peace: Analysts

Vladimir Putin scored a coup by discussing with Donald Trump in highly anticipated phone talks everything from improving bilateral ties to Iran and even hockey matches, but stopping well short of agreeing any peace path to end the war in Ukraine, analysts say.

During the call on Tuesday, Putin refused a full ceasefire agreement proposed by Washington but focused instead on reviving Russian-American cooperation that has been frozen since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The very fact such talks took place was an achievement for the Kremlin, said Ekaterina Schulmann, a Russian political scientist based in Berlin.

«The two superpowers are discussing the fate of the world and the future of humanity,» she told AFP, summing up Moscow's thinking.
«It is a great achievement for Russia which reproduces a Soviet-era narrative without being the Soviet Union.»

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The Kremlin said Trump had also backed Putin's proposal to hold ice hockey matches between American and Russian players playing in the NHL and KHL, an echo of showdowns between the Soviet Union and Canada in the Cold War in the 1970s.

Putin had agreed to halt attacks against Ukrainian energy targets but already the next day Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of not respecting those pledges.

«Nothing will change on the front lines,» wrote Mark F. Cancian and Maria Snegovaya for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

«The artillery will still fire, the drones will still fly, the infantry will still shoot at each other, and people will keep dying.»

'Russia-friendly Ukraine'
By emphasising «the absolute necessity of addressing the root causes» of the war against pro-Western Ukraine unleashed by Russia three years ago,