After delaying their phone call and then laughing about it to assembled Russian industrialists and state media (a very Russian attempt to show President Donald Trump who is boss), Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have thoroughly manipulated Trump during their conversation on Tuesday.
Trump was willing to put extraordinary pressure on Ukraine to agree to a full 30-day ceasefire, but Putin has now somehow persuaded Trump that the ceasefire should be limited to attacks on infrastructure and energy targets. This deal is a gift to Russia for three reasons.
First, because it shows Ukraine and U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere that Trump is not a fair arbiter for peace and can be corralled by Putin’s word games.
Second, because this deal is not a ceasefire so much as it is the absolute minimum fiction Putin evidently decided he had to give Trump in order to avoid…
