Trump's Call With Putin Signals Long Road Ahead to Russia-Ukraine Deal

Russia's leader didn't agree to a full cease-fire, presented his own demands to end fighting

- Alexander Ward, Alan Cullison & Matthew Luxmoore

President Trump insisted Russia would be the easier partner on the path to peace with Ukraine. But his Tuesday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin only underscored the Kremlin is so far the bigger obstacle. The question now facing Trump is whether to apply real pressure on Putin to make concessions or try to wring more compromises out of Kyiv than he already has.

In his call with Trump, Putin agreed to halt attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure for a month and to further negotiations toward a permanent cease-fire. But it was far less than Trump aimed for, and certainly less than the monthlong unconditional pause Kyiv accepted earlier.

After the call, Moscow said in a statement that Ukraine would have to agree to curtail its military mobilization and stop rearming, lengthening the list of Russian conditions for a deal. Trump said Putin on the call didn't ask for a military assistance pause during a Tuesday night interview on Fox News's "The Ingraham Angle."

"We didn't talk about aid at all," he said.

Now Trump has the dilemma of either trusting Putin to make peace, or pressuring the Kremlin to make a deal, which could derail his larger goal of rebuilding Washington's ties with Moscow. Either way, Trump has lashed the fate of his early presidency to Putin, testing whether the American's desire for a deal could overcome the Russian leader's goal of subjugating Ukraine.

"Trump genuinely wants to stop the slaughter, he finds it incomprehensible," said Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser on Russia during Trump's first term. "But what he's not realizing is that for Putin, this is the price he's willing to pay, no matter how colossal it may seem from the outside."

Putin's goal, she said, "is to dominate Ukraine and reassert Russia's position in Europe writ large."