# Trump-Putin Call (February 12, 2025) The first Trump-Putin phone call of Trump's second term and the first direct presidential-level U.S.-Russia call since Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The call opened the [[Trump II]] Russia channel and announced the framework for immediate negotiations to end the Ukraine war. **Duration:** ~90 minutes **Initiator:** Mutual / Trump-initiated per Trump's prior statements that he would call Putin "within days" of inauguration ## Readout — Trump / White House Trump posted his readout on [[Truth Social]]: *"We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects."* Trump described the conversation as "lengthy and very productive" and announced that negotiations to end the war would begin "immediately." He named the U.S. negotiating team: [[Marco Rubio]] (Secretary of State), National Security Advisor [[Mike Waltz]], CIA Director [[John Ratcliffe]], and Special Envoy [[Steve Witkoff]]. Trump said he expected a follow-up in-person meeting with Putin, possibly in [[Saudi Arabia]]. ## Readout — Kremlin The Kremlin readout (en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76259) emphasized that Putin agreed with Trump that a long-term settlement could be achieved through peaceful negotiations, that the two sides should work together "comprehensively," and that the leaders had touched on the Middle East, Iran, and bilateral issues. The Kremlin did not characterize the call's outcome as a specific commitment to immediate negotiations; the Russian framing was preparatory rather than operational. ## Zelensky Call Trump phoned [[Volodymyr Zelensky]] later the same day to brief him on the Putin conversation — i.e., Zelensky was briefed *after* the U.S. adversary, not before or in parallel. Zelensky posted on X that the call was "meaningful" and focused on "opportunities to achieve peace." European leaders were not briefed in advance. ## Surrounding Context (Russia-Ukraine and Direct Ripples) - **Same day (Feb 12, NATO HQ, Brussels):** Defense Secretary [[Pete Hegseth]] publicly stated that Ukrainian NATO membership was off the table and that a return to pre-2014 borders was "unrealistic" — pre-conceding two of Russia's principal negotiating asks at the moment the channel opened. - **Same day (Paris):** Foreign ministers of Ukraine, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the EU External Action Service issued a joint statement demanding EU participation in any negotiation process. The statement reflected European alarm at being excluded. - **February 14-16 (Munich Security Conference):** Vice President [[JD Vance]] delivered a speech attacking European democracies as the central threat to free expression, breaking from decades of U.S. Atlanticist messaging. The Munich speech crystallized the Trump II posture that the security threat to Europe was internal, not Russian. - **February 18 (Riyadh):** First U.S.-Russia bilateral negotiating round, Rubio-Lavrov, with no Ukrainian or European representation. The Riyadh format — bilateral U.S.-Russia talks about Ukraine without Ukraine present — became the structural model for subsequent rounds. - **February 28 (Oval Office):** The catastrophic public Trump-Vance-Zelensky Oval Office meeting, in which Trump and Vance publicly berated Zelensky and Trump abruptly ended the meeting without signing the planned U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement. The meeting collapsed coordinated Ukrainian-American war posture and reset the global perception of U.S. backing for Ukraine. ## Significance The February 12 call was structurally consequential beyond its content. The decision to open the channel by phoning Putin *before* Zelensky, and to brief NATO allies *after* both, established the procedural sequencing that subsequent calls followed. The Hegseth NATO speech the same day pre-conceded the two highest-value Russian asks before talks formally began. Within sixteen days the Oval Office Zelensky meeting collapsed Trump-Zelensky relations and the U.S. posture had effectively shifted: from underwriting Ukrainian resistance to pressuring Ukraine to accept Russian terms. The call is the operational opening of the Trump II Russia policy. See [[Trump-Putin Calls Timeline]] for the chronological sequence; see [[Trump-Russia Arc Timeline]] for the 39-year context.