But the message from the US side after the conversation faulted the Europeans more than Russia.<\/p>\n
Trump \u201cemphasized that Europe must stop purchasing Russian oil that is funding the war \u2014 as Russia received \u20ac1.1 billion in fuel sales from the EU in one year,\u201d\u00a0a White House official said\u00a0after the call. \u201cThe president also emphasized that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia\u2019s war efforts,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n
On one hand, Trump has a point. Given the grave security threat that European nations perceive from Russia, it\u2019s odd that there would be any European Union countries still\u00a0buying Russian energy at a time when the West has imposed sanctions to try to debilitate Moscow\u2019s economy over its illegal 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Still, like many of Trump\u2019s positions on the war, his pressure on Europe contains illogical and even hypocritical elements. After all, he\u2019s demanding that Europe take on China over its Russian oil purchases when he\u2019s not prepared to sanction Beijing himself. The United States is locked in\u00a0trade talks with the Chinese\u00a0after the president unleashed a trade war with high tariffs despite rather unfavorable US cards. Trump seems loath to do anything that will harm his chances of a deal.<\/p>\n
But his stance on Europe mirrors his treatment of another erstwhile friend, India, which is\u00a0struggling under a 50% tariff\u00a0on its exports to the United States that Trump justified by its continuing purchases of Russian oil. His move shattered a three-decade-long bid by successive Democratic and Republican presidents to keep India out of the orbit of fellow rising Asian superpower China.<\/p>\n The cost of his strategy was underscored this week when\u00a0Chinese President Xi Jinping offered Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a jovial welcome\u00a0at a summit of strongman leaders. Modi, meanwhile, spent an hour in Putin\u2019s limousine, in an echo of the Russian leader\u2019s ride in Trump\u2019s Beast armored car during their summit in Alaska three weeks ago.<\/p>\n In any case, hiking pressure on Europe to ease off its purchases of Putin\u2019s oil is unlikely to be decisive. The continent has been taking steps to decrease its dependence on Russian energy as war has raged in Ukraine. Russia was once the largest supplier of petroleum to the EU. But member states have since imposed a ban on maritime oil exports and refined oil products. CNN\u2019s\u00a0Lauren Kent reported last month\u00a0that oil imports to Europe fell to $1.72 billion in the first quarter of 2025, down from $16.4 billion in the equivalent period in 2021.<\/p>\n Russia, meanwhile, is intensifying its classic strategy of trying to\u00a0drive wedges between NATO allies as it seeks to create room for its forces to press for more gains on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n During his visit to China, Putin met Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and accused Europeans of whipping up \u201chysteria\u201d over Moscow allegedly planning to attack Europe. \u201cAny sane person is perfectly aware that Russia has never had, does not have, and will never have any desire to attack anyone,\u201d said a Russian president whose forces entered Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.<\/p>\n In Alaska, Putin warned \u2014 as he stood side-by-side with a US president who has frequently criticized America\u2019s allies \u2014 that Europe should not \u201cthrow a wrench in the works\u201d of his diplomacy with Trump.<\/p>\n And earlier this week, the European Commission said a plane carrying its top leader Ursula Von der Leyen was\u00a0targeted with GPS navigation jamming\u00a0while landing in Bulgaria on Sunday and that Russia was suspected. Moscow blasted the claim as \u201cfake\u201d and a symptom of European \u201cparanoia.\u201d<\/p>\n In another swipe at Europe this week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters that Russia found the idea of any deployment of foreign troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal \u201cunacceptable.\u201d It was Moscow\u2019s latest effort to scupper a European push for a reassurance force for Ukraine after the war.<\/p>\n There is also no sign of the meeting between Putin and Zelensky that White House officials confidently predicted would take place as soon as two weeks ago. Putin did offer to hold talks in Moscow. But since it would be impossible for Zelensky to feel secure in such a venue, this came across as yet another example of obstruction.<\/p>\n Trump had once suggested he\u2019d be involved as a third party in such talks, but he\u2019s reverted to the Russian position that a one-on-one should happen first. Ukraine\u2019s allies worry that Putin would orchestrate a confrontation in a bilateral meeting that he could then use to argue to Trump that Zelensky had sabotaged the process.<\/p>\n There was one glimmer of progress on Thursday \u2014 even if it is conditional on the long-shot success of a Trump peace initiative that stalled before it really got going.<\/p>\n Following the call between Trump, Zelensky and members of the \u201cCoalition of the Willing\u201d Ukrainian allies, French President Emmanuel Macron said that 26 countries had pledged contributions to a potential peacekeeping force if a ceasefire deal is finalized.<\/p>\n Macron said that, alongside strengthening Ukraine\u2019s armed forces and deploying European troops to Ukraine, the third component of Ukraine\u2019s security guarantees ought to be an \u201cAmerican safety net.\u201d The US has told allies it is open to a limited role in providing security guarantees to Ukraine if a peace deal is reached with Russia.<\/p>\n At the end of another week of very little movement toward peace in Ukraine, it\u2019s no wonder, as\u00a0CNN\u2019s Alayna Treene reported, that Trump is getting frustrated.<\/p>\n But there are few signs that he\u2019s got a big idea to break the logjam.<\/p>\n The headline of this story has been updated.<\/em><\/p>\n For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at\u00a0CNN.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are on the same page again. The US and Russian presidents are now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,51,53,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-russia","category-ukraine","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Russia seeks to split the US and Europe<\/h3>\n
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Some movement on security guarantees \u2014 but Russia would be a roadblock<\/h3>\n