He said he has no aggressive plans for Europe. The missiles still kept the appointment in Kyiv. Soft power, if soft power is a one-hour phone call with a body count in the footnotes.
Associated Press reporting carried by the Los Angeles Times and PBS is blunt: after U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff shuttled Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend, President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held an hourlong Tuesday call that Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov called “constructive and quite frank.” Ushakov’s headline line — the one Dallas will not put on the teleprompter — was that Moscow has “no aggressive plans regarding Europe,” offered amid European alarms about sabotage campaigns on their soil. Putin also walked Trump through Russia’s battlefield assessment and its plan to keep pressing for what Moscow still calls a “special military operation.” There was no immediate White House readout. Silence is also a foreign policy.
Zelenskyy, for his part, said the envoys floated “very good, worthwhile ideas,” still confidential, and that he hopes to meet Trump around Sept. 20 near the U.N. General Assembly window — pressing for more Patriot batteries while the European Commission green-lit a $3.7 billion loan for Patriot components. U.K. Defense Secretary Wes Streeting’s shopping list for partners: 300 Patriot missiles, 500 air-to-air interceptors, $2 billion more for drones. Soft power is not a frank call. Soft power is interceptors that arrive before the next frank call.
Deb will reply-all that we are not doing “Europe reassurance theater” at dinner. Buck will text “just end it already.” I love them. I also love a midterm season that can sell balloon drops in Dallas while Putin reassures Europe over the phone and Kyiv counts the hours after the motorcade. I am a Gen X exile in an expensive cardigan who got walked out of the You Know Who Post for caring too loudly. Soft power is not a Kremlin presser with “no aggressive plans” as the lede. Soft power is a ceasefire that outlasts the escort detail.
The calendar did the rest. Both capitals had paused strikes so the American guests could move. Then the guests left. Russia resumed overnight attacks on Kyiv and Odesa; Ukrainian officials put Kyiv’s toll at least five dead and about twenty-five wounded, with more than fifty sites damaged — residential buildings, dorms, schools, shops, a flour plant. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha put it without cardigan polish: Putin’s “ballistic missiles speak louder than his words on diplomacy.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, same news cycle, said victory is “very close.” The Institute for the Study of War’s counter-math: at current rates, Donetsk might not fall until 2032 — if at all. Close, if close is a decade.
Leave a Reply