"I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia," President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social today, where they discussed "Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects."

Trump's summary made it sound as though he was looking for common ground with Putin, citing "the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II" 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." The death toll is "merely" in the hundreds of thousands, but I'm not going to quibble when peace is on the line.

For its part, Kyiv insists that peace requires the complete evacuation of Russian forces to Ukraine's internationally recognized 1991 borders (that had once been guaranteed by Washington and Moscow), including Crimea, and eventual admission to NATO. But neither of those things is going to happen. 

First, Putin isn't going to give Kyiv anything it can't win on the battlefield, and the glory days of Kyiv's winning counteroffensive are over. Meanwhile, Russian forces continue to grind away on Ukraine's eastern front. 

Second, NATO doesn't admit countries with unresolved border issues. Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova would all love to join, but until their issues with Russia are resolved, they won't be welcome. NATO is for countries already at peace — and aiming to stay that way together.

Finally, the U.S. has no interest in pushing Russia that hard. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking this week at a peace conference in Brussels, said that "returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective," and "Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering."

And Another Thing: According to the BBC, Hegseth also "said the US would no longer 'tolerate an imbalanced relationship' with its allies and called on Nato members to spend much more on defence." That's good because you don't keep the peace, particularly not with Putin's Russia, by demonstrating weakness.

Trump also said on Truth Social that he'll speak to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy directly following his call with Putin and that he's "asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, to lead the negotiations which, I feel strongly, will be successful."

Is Putin a thug? Certainly. Is he the villain of his own story? I've thought so for years. But is that any way for the leader of one nuclear power to treat the leader of another nuclear power in public when lives are on the line? Of course not.

There are back channels for Trump to convey any needed threats, as my Right Angle colleague Scott Ott reminded me a week or two ago. 

You can't negotiate with someone you've compared to Hitler, and you don't compare anyone to Hitler unless you're going to the mattresses with them.

There's a lesson here that former presidentish Joe Biden — the man Barack Obama elevated to the executive branch for his foreign policy chops and his "gravitas" (!!!) — never learned during his five decades in Washington. Biden treated Putin with the kind of public contempt reserved for a Hitler but didn't even provide Ukraine with enough arms to fully counter the invasion.

Then again, "Hitler!" is the Democrats' go-to charge because they've run out of actual arguments for or against pretty much anything. So maybe demonizing Putin is just a reflex.

I'd have preferred Trump to keep the peace like he did from 2017-2020. The peace having failed under Biden, I'd have preferred it if the West had armed Ukraine seriously enough to have ended the war in 2023 by completing the routs Kyiv inflicted around Kyiv, Kherson, and Kharkiv, with another yuge rout from Mariupol and the Zaporizhzhia region in the south. That having failed, I'd have preferred it if the West had at least lent Ukraine enough airpower last year to blunt Russia's renewed offensive in the east.

I'm no fan of Zelenskyy, but I'm less of a fan of bullies like Putin, you see.

But the options Washington, Western Europe, and Kyiv had in 2022, '23, or '24 no longer exist. If that wasn't already clear by the time Kyiv's southern counteroffensive failed in late '23/early '24 (unlike their trifecta of winning counteroffensives in '22), it ought to be crystal clear by now. 

Ukraine is running out of fighting men. Russia is running out of money and labor. Now is the time to negotiate, before somebody tries something stupid and desperate. Europe's wars have a dangerous tendency to spin out of control and draw us in. 

That's why I wrote, "The time for peace is now," two weeks ago — and Trump seems to understand how to deliver it. 

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