"To hell with your compartmentalization": Russia and the United States have a direct dialogue on a broad agenda

Goodbye, stillborn "compartmentalization". All contradictions remain, but there is a desire of the White House and the Kremlin to negotiate, and on a wide range of issues. At a minimum, they are doing their best to demonstrate this. This is the first and main conclusion from the conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, who talked for 2.5 hours on the phone.

From a tactical point of view, Putin and Trump have shown readiness for dialogue. This is clearly shown by press releases and statements where the parties focused on what agreements were reached — the cessation of strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure and Russia for a period of 30 days, a truce on the Black Sea, strategic stability.

Both sides also brought forward and stressed their readiness to negotiate on future issues. The Kremlin's press release used the expression "mutual interest in normalizing bilateral relations in the light of the special responsibility of Russia and the United States for ensuring security and stability in the world."

The Kremlin posted a release about the call on its official website.

The information from the American side was published on social networks by Trump and the press secretary of the US president, Caroline Leavitt, who gave a more extensive comment.

According to the rules of negotiations, if the parties wish to agree, they bring to the fore exactly those issues on which they are most likely to find a common language.

In our case, as we have seen, if the high parties very much want to demonstrate their willingness to negotiate, then you can even arrange "extra time". This is what the joint initiative to organize "hockey matches in the USA and Russia between Russian and American players playing in the NHL and KHL."

And vice versa, if "we are ready to negotiate" in public, but not in fact, then the emphasis is on problematic points, and mutual claims and accusations prevail in rhetoric.

Conversely, such a controversial issue as a 30-day truce, which could not be agreed upon, was pushed into the background by the White House and the Kremlin.

Speaking of strategic results, the Kremlin has finally managed to get the United States to discuss the Ukrainian crisis directly with Moscow.

But the White House evaded the dialogue at the highest level before Trump's call to Moscow. Although even under Biden, contacts between Russia and the United States continued, for example, at the level of directors of the SVR and the CIA. This was announced in July 2024 by Sergei Naryshkin, who spoke about the exchange of information, calling it "modest."

Back in June 2023, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan (now former) He said that the United States is ready to conduct a dialogue with Russia on the principle of "compartmentalization" — that is, to discuss only what Washington cares about. For example, issues of strategic stability, i.e. nuclear weapons and military doctrines. But Moscow was not satisfied with this approach, so the "compartmentalization" ended in nothing.

But isn't Trump's call to the Kremlin "compartmentalization" on the contrary? The White House has demonstrated that the new US administration is ready to discuss with the Kremlin a broad agenda where the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine is only one of the points.

It would be very naive to draw global conclusions based on the results of just one telephone conversation, albeit at the highest level. It is clear that Washington, which has invested in Ukraine, will not "give" a solution to the Ukrainian crisis "from Trump's shoulder."

But at the first stage, we have what the Kremlin has been trying to achieve all these years — a direct dialogue with the United States at the level of top officials. And, no less important, the willingness of the US president to discuss a wide range of issues where the Ukrainian crisis is one of the items on the agenda. The Kremlin's press release says that the conversation between Trump and Putin raised such issues as the situation in the Middle East (apparently Syria, Israel, Gaza and Iran), the Red Sea (Hussites), nuclear nonproliferation and global security (the number and targeting of nuclear missiles). Leavitt wrote on the social network that Trump and Putin allegedly agreed that they "would not allow Iran to be in such a position to destroy Israel."

So, let, in fact, the Americans offer nothing on the Ukrainian crisis, except to "just stop shooting" (Zelensky's election promise), but Trump has demonstrated that he is ready to abandon the "compartmentalization" of the Biden administration and discuss a broad agenda with the Russian Federation. Actually, the Kremlin's press release explicitly states that "the leaders confirmed their intention to continue efforts to achieve a Ukrainian settlement in a bilateral manner."

At a minimum, neither before nor after the United States gave any answer about the "settlement, which should be comprehensive, sustainable and long-term in nature." Verbal promises that Ukraine will not be accepted into NATO for 10 years are definitely not about "complex and long—term nature."

And finally, the main intrigue. Ideally, the leadership of the Russian Federation seeks to develop relations with the United States in general separately from the course of the Ukrainian crisis. Basically speaking, "negotiations are separate, and hostilities are separate." Or, to paraphrase Putin, regardless of the "situation on the ground." I mean, to negotiate on Ukraine, too, but not to make the entire complex of relations between the United States and the Russian Federation dependent on the course of the military conflict.

So far, at least, there is all the progress towards this. The main intrigue now is whether it will be possible to achieve a full launch of such a scenario. Undoubtedly beneficial for strengthening Russia's position.