For Donald Trump, Monday's call with Vladimir Putin evokes hope for a bright future for "mass trade" between Russia and the United States, "when this catastrophic "bloody bush" ends."

Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser to the Russian leader, said the tone of the two-hour conversation was so friendly that no president wanted to be the first to put down the phone.

It felt like betrayal for Ukrainians and allies in Europe.

The U.S. president does not appear to have put any ceasefire pressure on Russia. According to his readings of the phone, Trump also made it clear that the United States was succumbing to mediators who ended the war, making Moscow and Kiev figure out their own things.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of the consequences. "What is crucial for all of us is that the distance between the United States and negotiation and the pursuit of peace is not out of reach, because the only one who benefits from Putin," he said in a statement after his conversation with Trump.

For observers, this is a turning point after more than three years of conflict. A president who promised to end the Ukrainian war in his second term seemed to wash his hands and put Ukraine in mercy by its invaders. The call confirmed the worst concerns of Europeans: the US president attracted by Putin's blandness is ready to move to Moscow and sell Kiev.

Trump even talks about who can replace the United States: Pope Leo XIV. "The Vatican … has said that this will be very interested in holding the negotiations," he wrote.

After talking to Putin in Europe, Trump not only spoke to European leaders, which not only showed that he was disengaged, but he was not intending to put additional pressure on Moscow, while bilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine were underway.

This represents Trump's Volte face. Just a week ago, he joined other Western leaders in threatening new punitive measures against Russia if it fails to cease fire immediately.

Trump himself admitted to reporters late Monday that he did not even reiterate his early demands on Putin to stop attacks on Ukrainian civilian areas.

“The call with Trump is a victory for Putin,” Steven Pifer said. "He made it clear that the ceasefire would not happen soon, so Russia could continue the war. Still no other sanctions would be imposed."

Trump and Putin seem to have agreed that Russia and Ukraine will hold talks directly, starting last Friday in Istanbul.

Putin said Russia is ready to cooperate with Ukraine to develop a "memorandum on future peace agreements." This will include “the principle on which a peace agreement will be reached” and “if certain agreements are reached, a ceasefire may be possible within a certain period of time”.

However, what Putin is talking about is confusing.

A senior Ukrainian official familiar with the appeal spoke of the idea of ​​the memorandum that “no one knows what it is, what reason (and) why it matters”. Zelenskyy himself told reporters late Monday that the memo proposal was "unknown" to him.

"The Russians will have low-level conversations, exchange various documents, and continue to fight," Bill Taylor said. "Will Trump endure all this stagnant time?"

Trump himself, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance, have been marked for weeks by Trump himself, repeatedly expressing frustration with Russia and Ukraine to the same extent. Vance told reporters on Monday that the United States may have to say, “This is not our war.”

"We're going to try to end it, but if we can't end it, we'll end up saying, 'You know what? It's worth trying, but we won't do it anymore.'"

Trump reiterated that when he told reporters at the White House that ending the war would "be happen." "If not, I just took a step back and they would have to keep moving forward. This is the situation in Europe, and it should still be the situation in Europe."

Some experts believe Trump's desire for disengagement is understandable. "Both sides' approach is to make Trump angry on the other side, which is inherently destructive," said Peter Slezkine of Stimson Center Think-Tank. "If he can force both sides to talk to each other and bring himself out of the picture, that may be a necessary condition to make things move."

However, Trump now seems to be more interested in reconciliation with Moscow than resolving the war.

"At this point, Trump seems to normalize the Russian-U.S. relations in its own right," said Andrew Weiss, vice president of the Carnegie International Peace Foundation. "Everything else is subject to that goal."

Putin's apparent willingness to delay may reflect Russia's confidence in the military advancement of Ukraine's full invasion, where it has stepped up offensive operations in much of the frontline.

A Ukrainian military spokesman said that "hard fighting" is raging in the strategic city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine and in the northern part of nearby Toretsk. The soldiers said the highway, which is a crucial logistics hub, is being attacked by conventional drones, threatening Ukraine's operations in the region.

Ukrainian analytics Deepstate approached the military, saying the situation was "not good for Kiev troops" and said the Russian army "crossed the post and approached the administrative borders of the Donetsk region", one of the areas Russia unilaterally annexed in 2022, but was not fully controlled.

Deepstate's map tracks changes on the front line, showing that the Russians are less than 5 kilometers away from the border where the fiercest battle is.

Together with the neighboring regions of Luhansk, Hosen and Zaporizhzhia, capturing the entire Donetsk region, its other three regions annexed by 2022 - remains a major military target for Moscow. To achieve this, its army suffered huge losses. During talks with Ukrainian officials in Turkey last week, Russia pulled all its troops from all four regions in Kiev.

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Institute of Foreign Policy, said Russia successfully occupied the front line and managed to recruit soldiers in large quantities.

“Military, I think Russia can sustain this struggle for the time being, given its ongoing recruitment of volunteers,” he said. “The Russian leadership may think they can still improve their position on the battlefield.”

As summer approaches, weather conditions will become more conducive to offensive action, which could benefit Russia, Lee said.

“Russia still hasn’t achieved its minimum target of occupying all Donetsk and Luhansk regions…so, this summer, it may try to seize as much territory as possible and then participate in the negotiations more seriously.”

Other reports on James Politics in Washington