After Trump-Putin Call, 'the Ground Shifted Again'

Monday held great promise for progress in ending the Russia-Ukraine war. The gist of coverage on Tuesday is that there is no resolution in sight after President Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin, and also with Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders.

• Trump suggested progress: "Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War," he wrote on Truth Social, and he told reporters later at the White House that he thought "some progress is being made," reports Reuters. But this fell well short of the hoped-for breakthrough. The war will continue, with no ceasefire in sight, only the promise of the continuation of talks.
• "The ground shifted again," is how Anthony Zurcher of the BBC puts it in an analysis. Trump once promised to end the war in his first 24 hours in office, then said it would be resolved only after he and Putin put their heads together. Now, after the two-hour call, Trump "said that the conditions of a peace deal could only be negotiated between Russia and Ukraine—and maybe with the help of the pope."

• The New York Times similarly finds that Trump "appeared enthusiastic to surrender his mediating role to a higher power: the pope." Trump even floated the idea of the US washing its hands of the war: "I tell you, big egos involved, but I think something's going to happen. And if it doesn't, I just back away and they're going to have to keep going," he said, per CNN.
• After his call with Putin, Trump spoke with Zelensky, along with the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Finland, and the European Commission in a conference call. They hoped to hear that he had convinced Putin to agree to an immediate ceasefire, perhaps under pressure of US penalties. But, according to Axios, the leaders "seemed surprised that Trump seemed relatively content with what he heard from Putin, and presented it as a new development, even though the Russian leader did not seem to have changed his position at all."
• The Washington Post sees a pattern emerging after Trump's third call with Putin since his inauguration: The US "demands on Putin to show that he is serious about peace, countered by the Kremlin insisting that the complexity of a broader peace deal prevents an immediate ceasefire."

(More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)