How Putin destroyed relations with Trump and threw himself out of the window of opportunity

Just a day ago, Trump expressed doubts that Putin wanted the war to end, and now, at a meeting of the American government, he is already talking about the Russian president as a person who is always talking a lot of nonsense.

What is going on? Why was Trump ready to ignore Putin's mockery of him and his failure to meet any of his wishes for five consecutive phone calls, and now he has turned into an irritated fury before our eyes – and this is just the beginning?

And because Putin made mistakes in his typical style.

On the eve of his sixth conversation with Putin, Trump made a decisive concession to his Russian counterpart: he stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine. Prior to that, Russian financial institutions were partially exempted from sanctions. And although formally it was only about the Syrian case, it was actually a real signal.

Putin's response should be to imitate constructiveness. Announce some kind of ceasefire for 48 hours or a week, say he is ready for talks in Istanbul tomorrow, tell Trump he is preparing new proposals in addition to his memorandum.

But Putin decided, for some unknown reason, that Trump was already in his pocket and that he could no longer imitate anything. He didn't seem to notice that Trump was already irritated after the previous two phone calls. Or maybe he decided that if Trump continues to make concessions even after these two phone calls, his irritation doesn't matter. And he miscalculated .

Trump was clearly offended by the fact that these concessions did not lead to anything. He was so offended that he decided not to comment on the conversation with Putin on social media, although he had previously announced it on social media. And the absence of a comment on social media is already a bad signal.

But the most interesting thing happened later. Putin ignored both Trump's irritation and the absence of any comment from the White House on the presidents' phone call. Instead, he staged a demonstrative massive shelling of Ukraine, as if to show off: now everything is possible.

And the fact that this shelling began simultaneously with the end of the presidential phone call, i.e., it was planned in advance for the end of that phone call, was a major irritant for Trump. He could have survived a bad phone call. But the shelling immediately after the conversation was perceived as a demonstrative disrespect for him .

After all, he keeps asking Putin not to shell peaceful cities. And the fact that Putin deliberately does this immediately after talking to him is a manifestation of personal disrespect. And personal disrespect is Trump's main complex. It's no longer at the political level, it's at the subconscious level .

And Putin succeeded. He has effectively wiped out months of courtship, compliments, portraits, all that bullshit. Trump now says that Putin is very polite, but that's absolutely ridiculous .

At the same time, it is impossible to explain to Putin where he went wrong, because Putin did what he always does. Moreover, he did what any "right" person from Russia always does – when he sees that he is being treated politely and made concessions, he thinks that he should be punched in the teeth: so that the client clearly understands how to behave.

That is why Putin is unlikely to correct anything. He will say to himself that he has had the opportunity to use Trump for quite some time, and now he needs to return to his usual policy of confrontation. Only here he may be wrong. Because when Putin switched to the usual policy of confrontation with Biden, he was dealing with a traditional politician who calculated the consequences of his every move.

But in Trump's case, it won't work that way. Putin will now have to deal with an offended child who will defend his dignity and prove that he cannot wipe his feet on it. Because this child is the president of the United States of America. Not "this is it" .

And if Putin doesn't realize in time that he should come to his senses and offer Trump something that will demonstrate to the American president the respect and understanding of the Russian leader, that Trump's wishes should be heeded – for example, a ceasefire on the Russian-Ukrainian front – I don't really envy Putin.

And I strongly advise us to make good use of the window of opportunity that Putin has just thrown himself out of.

Original