Trump Talks to Putin, and Suddenly Ukraine’s in Play

Lighting erupted in Ukraine after many months of uneasy but consistent calm after Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the U.S. and Russian presidents, finally spoke for the first time last weekend by telephone. Instantly, the Trump White House is faced with one of the tough foreign policy questions that proved quite beyond Barack Obama's capacities. By most accounts, Ukraine wasn't a major topic during the Trump-Putin exchange, but Trump has a major policy judgment on his hands now. 

While Trump was always clear about defrosting ties with Russia during last year's campaigns, it was among the many ideas that came with a question. Will he or won't he remove the sanctions, given formidable opposition to any such idea in the Pentagon, the national security agencies, and NATO? 

Now we know. This isn't a hotel deal or a Miss Universe pageant or some kind of mutual admiration club. Detente is the White House policy as of last Saturday. The two leaders did not discuss the Western sanctions against Russia now in place, and there was no talk that Russia meddled in the elections to put Trump in the White House.

In a 50-minute exchange, they spoke of making common cause against international terrorism and improving economic ties; they determined to hold a summit--the shake-hands kind--later this year. Trump did sign a memorandum, the same day ordering security agencies to devise a new anti-terror blueprint. Among its instructions was "identification of new coalition partners in the fight against ISIS." 

Sounds like the beginning of a detente story, although John Kerry and the Obama administration tried for months to cut a deal on "the possibility of Russian-American cooperation in the fight against terrorist groups in Syria." Clearly, cooperation does not always signal detente. For Donald Trump, terrorism is an obvious call as a shared concern between Moscow and Washington. But don't think for a moment the defense and security establishments are going to rest their case against any warming of U.S.-Russian ties. 

The renewal of violence in Ukraine, this time centered on the town of Avdiivka, is a direct test of Trump's determination to stick to his position on U.S.-Russian relations. Whoever is responsible for renewing the conflict--and we can't know this yet--seems to have just this test in mind. Given the timing, it's logical to start with who has the most to gain or lose in Ukraine. 

As Russian media make plain, Moscow's practically breathless to enter a "new partnership" with Washington. It's hard to think why Putin would follow a successful first encounter with battlefield aggression. 

The story was first published Here