‘This whole machine won’t be reversed so easily’ Before his call with Trump, Putin privately told business leaders not to expect a quick peace deal
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump held their second publicly acknowledged phone call since Trump returned to office in January. (Trump claims they’ve had additional, unpublicized calls.) Ahead of the conversation, the White House struck an optimistic tone, telling Americans that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was closer than ever. But in Russia, behind closed doors, Putin was telling business leaders not to expect an agreement anytime soon, according to three sources who spoke to the Telegram channel Faridaily. Here’s what they said.
Before his call with Donald Trump on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin “made it clear” to Russian business leaders that they should not expect a swift peace agreement in the war with Ukraine, the Telegram channel Faridaily reports, citing two sources who attended the meeting and another who heard about it from participants.
Putin delivered this message during the closed portion of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) congress, an annual gathering of Russia’s top business lobby, held the same day as his call with Trump. “Let me put it this way: the president advised us not to be naive and to understand just how many people and interests are involved in the ongoing processes,” one attendee told Faridaily.
Another participant said Putin believes that even if sanctions were lifted, the U.S. and its allies “would still find ways to pressure” Russia. A third source summarized Putin’s remarks: “This whole machine [the war in Ukraine and sanctions] won’t be reversed so easily.”
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As in the public portion of the RSPP congress, Putin cautioned business leaders against premature optimism, warning them not to expect sanctions to be lifted overnight or for everything to return to the way it was, according to a source familiar with the conversation. Another attendee confirmed this account.
Following their exchange with Putin, Faridaily’s sources concluded that “negotiations will be difficult and drawn out, despite optimistic public statements from the American side.”
Speaking publicly at the event, Putin reiterated that “things will not go back to the way they were,” addressing the potential return of Western companies that exited Russia after the war began in 2022. “There’s no point hoping for full freedom of trade, payment, and capital flows — nor for Western mechanisms to protect investors’ and entrepreneurs’ rights,” he said.
After Putin’s call with Trump on Tuesday evening, the Kremlin announced that he had agreed to a 30-day pause in strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and had “given corresponding orders to the military.” However, Russian forces still launched drone attacks on Ukrainian cities that night.
According to Kommersant, Putin also stated during the closed portion of the RSPP congress that Russia would not seek to claim “Odesa or other territories” of Ukraine if, as part of the peace negotiations, Crimea, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics,” and the partially occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were recognized as Russian territory.