By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
By the close of Thursday there was a difference of opinion between the Kremlin and the White House on what had taken place on the telephone earlier that evening between President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump.
More exactly, there had been argument over Trump’s threat to send long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles through NATO to the Ukraine for firing at the Russian hinterland.
In Trump’s summary, tweeted at 20:11 Moscow time, he said “great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation.” He said the main points of conversation were the Middle East peace plan; the Melania Trump initiative on the war-displaced children; “a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over”; a new meeting between foreign ministers, Marco Rubio and Sergei Lavrov; and Budapest for the meeting to follow between the presidents.
In Ushakov’s summary, posted by the Kremlin an hour later at 21:10, the call had lasted “almost two and a half hours. Clearly, it was a rather substantive and at the same time very open and frank exchange.”
The last phrase means there was serious disagreement. This was over Trump’s challenge to Putin’s military capacities as a “paper tiger” by the Tomahawk threat. According to Ushakov, “The issue of potential supplies of long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine was also raised. Vladimir Putin reiterated his position that Tomahawks would not change the situation on the battlefield but would inflict substantial damage to relations between our countries, to say nothing of the prospects for a peaceful settlement.”
Ushakov’s summary omitted to record what Trump had replied to Putin on this. Trump’s tweet didn’t mention Tomahawk at all. They did agree, Ushakov said, to transfer the argument to their subordinates for a meeting next week, and then to meet directly in a new summit in Hungary.
Ushakov’s readout of the call ended on the line: “Overall, I would say that the telephone contact between the Russian and US presidents was very useful, and the two leaders agreed to stay in touch.”
For the time being, Trump thinks his Tomahawk threat is working; Putin thinks he has delayed the move and made its cancellation the precondition for the Budapest summit.
Trump first disclosed publicly by tweet that he was speaking to Putin at 18:21 pm Moscow time. “I am speaking to President Putin now. The conversation is ongoing, a lengthy one, and I will report the contents, as will President Putin, at its conclusion. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Then at 20:11 Moscow time Trump posted his summary of the telephone conversation. The sequence he was planning to follow, he said – meeting with Vladimir Zelensky in Washington the next day; meeting of “High Level Advisors next week.” After that, without an agreement on the date, Trump wrote that “President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this “inglorious” War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.”
The Russian state media have been slow to pick up on Ushakov’s communiqué and report the argument over the Tomahawks.
RIA Novosti reported: “The Kremlin confirmed the information about the conversation.” The brief bulletin appeared at 18:27 and was updated at 19:43. Then RIA Novosti reported the Trump tweet at 20:08, with an update at 21:05. The state medium reported a single local line: “The head of RDIF [Russia Direct Investment Fund], Kirill Dmitriev, called the talks of the presidents of Russia and the United States positive and important for the whole world.” It is unclear whether Dmitriev was expressing his reaction to the telephone call or an article of his faith.
RT, the state medium for international broadcasting, followed at 20:24, reporting Trump’s tweet without a Kremlin response. Instead, the broadcaster noted: “Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday praised the Trump administration’s diplomatic outreach and noted that it is the sole Western government that has made an effort to understand the fundamental causes of the Ukraine conflict. Moscow is still awaiting Washington’s response to the roadmap presented at the Alaska summit, he added.”
At 21:00 Sputnik News reported a verbatim summary of Ushakov’s readout.
RT missed Ushakov and followed with a report that the Prime Minister of Hungary, Victor Orban, had agreed with Trump: “‘We are ready!’ Orban wrote [23:13 Moscow time]. ‘The planned meeting between the American and Russian presidents is great news for the peace-loving people of the world,’ the Hungarian prime minister added.” Orban said that he was speaking after Trump had called him with the news. RT has not reported any communication between Orban and Putin.
If Trump was expecting, as he had tweeted, that Putin will “report the contents [of the conversation]”, he may be disappointed. That’s how he described his mind towards Putin on Tuesday (October 14). “I’m very disappointed because Vladimir and I had a very good relationship, probably still do. I don’t know why he continues with this war. This war has been so bad for him. He’s going into four years of a war that should have beaten — he should have won that war in one week.” Asked by a reporter the next day (October 15) if he planned to talk to Putin about sending Tomahawk cruise missiles through NATO to the Ukraine, Trump had replied: “No, we’re looking at other options.”
Following the call to Moscow at a dinner in the new White House ballroom, Trump said he wasn’t feeling disappointed. “We’ve interestingly made a lot of progress today because of what took place in the Middle East. Uh, only the deep-thinking business people would understand that, of which we have a lot of them.”
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