There have been dramatic developments in the Ukraine war over the past week, with Donald Trump’s phone call to Vladimir Putin setting off a series of events.

In an analysis titled “How Putin and Trump upset the world in a week,” the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg explains the balances that are forming in the new setting.
Robert Roosevelt, the editorial director of the World Economic Forum, explains the new situation in the new world.

“When he wrote his eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the American journalist John Reid famously called it Ten Days That Shook the World. But 10 days is too long for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. They have shaken things up in a week,” the journalist said.

The developments began with the Putin-Trump phone conversation on February 12 and their presidential promises to restart relations. It continued with the Munich Security Conference and the rift between Europe and America.

Next stop Saudi Arabia for the Russia-US talks: the first high-level face-to-face contact between the two countries since the Kremlin’s total invasion of Ukraine.

“This has been a week that has upended traditional alliances, left Europe and Ukraine trying to react, raised fears about European security, and put Russia where it wants to be: at the top table of global politics, without having made concessions to get there.”

The world’s top policymaker has not gone anywhere near the top of the political agenda, where he hasn’t made it to the top of the political agenda.

What the Kremlin wants

The picture dominating Russian newspapers on Wednesday morning is one: senior Russian and US officials at the negotiating table in Riyadh.

The Kremlin wants the Russian public and the international community to see that Western efforts to isolate Russia for the war in Ukraine have failed. Russian media hail the prospect of warmer ties with Washington and deride European leaders and Kiev.

“Trump knows he will have to make concessions (to Russia) because he is negotiating with the winning side in Ukraine,” the pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets writes. “He will make concessions. Not at the expense of America, but at the expense of Europe and Ukraine. For so long Europe has gone around puffed up, thinking of itself as the civilized world and the Garden of Eden. She didn’t notice that she had lost her pants. Now her old comrade on the other side of the Atlantic has pointed this out…”

What Moscow citizens expect

On the streets of Moscow, the mood is not the same. People are holding their breath on whether Donald Trump will indeed turn out to be Russia’s new best friend and whether he can end the war in Ukraine.

“Trump is a businessman. He is only interested in making money,” Nadezhda says. “I don’t think things will be different. There is too much that needs to be done to change the situation.”

Putin and Trump have spoken by phone; the two groups met in Saudi Arabia; and a presidential summit is expected soon.

The imaginary dialogues

But a few days ago Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper tried to imagine what the two leaders said to each other during last week’s phone call.

They came up with this rendition:

-“Vladimir! You have a nice country and I have a nice country. Are we going to divide the world?”

-“What have I been saying all along? Let’s do it!” ….”

Now whether the above scenario is true, only time will tell.