Since Donald Trump's return to the White House, Moscow has said it was waiting for a "signal." After the US president's phone call on Wednesday, February 12, Vladimir Putin can now deploy his usual tactics: cajoling, waiting to impose himself. The Russian president, who on January 24 praised Trump's "intelligence" and "pragmatic" character, is now inviting him to Moscow. The last time an American president visited the Russian capital was in 2009, during Barack Obama's presidency. Putin was prime minister at the time. Three years after the start of the Kremlin's "special military operation" in Ukraine, an invasion launched under the presidency of his disgraced predecessor, Joe Biden, the mere prospect of this trip offers Trump a first success in ending what he has called "this ridiculous war."

Putin had already declared that the "special military operation" could have been avoided if Trump "had been president, if they hadn't stolen victory from him in 2020." At the end of their hour-and-a-half conversation on Wednesday, he promised him "peace talks." It will be necessary to "tackle the root causes of the conflict," as Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov insisted after the meeting.

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