ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today, President Trump expressed his dismay with Russian airstrikes on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. That's a shift. Big picture, U.S.-Russia relations have been more upbeat since Trump took office. The U.S. may be less eager to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, but there's still a strong desire to cut business deals with the Kremlin. In Moscow, NPR's Charles Maynes has this look at the view from Russia.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Donald Trump returned to the White House promising to shake up Biden-era policies towards Russia and its war in Ukraine. And shake them up Trump has.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We had a great call, and it lasted for a long time - over an hour.
MAYNES: Within weeks of taking office, Trump picked up the phone and ended Biden's three-year diplomatic isolation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
ABBAS GALLYAMOV: For him, Trump was a blessing in disguise.
MAYNES: Abbas Gallyamov is a former speech writer for Putin turned government critic in exile. Gallyamov says Trump's decision to reach out came just in time for Putin, at a moment when Russia's economy and public support for the war was starting to sputter.
GALLYAMOV: Everything was very grim. The perspectives were very bad. And all of a sudden, Trump appeared. Oh, my God, finally, you heard my prayers. This is the attitude.
MAYNES: And perhaps with reason.
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PETE HEGSETH: The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.
MAYNES: Within days, Trump's secretary of state (ph), Pete Hegseth, ruled out any future NATO membership for Ukraine and said Kyiv would likely have to cede territory to Russia - two key Kremlin demands. Soon, Trump went further, publicly blaming Ukraine and NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe for pushing Russia into war. Even in the Kremlin, it seemed everything was suddenly turned upside down - the White House not only embracing a Russian world view, it appeared to be pushing for peace in Ukraine on Moscow's terms.
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DMITRY PESKOV: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: "The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations," noted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in an interview on state television in March. "And this new Trump approach," Peskov added, "largely coincides with our vision." Kremlin propagandists have embraced the shift.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: Programs that once crackled with anti-American rhetoric now celebrate Trump's actions. These days, hostility is now squarely aimed at Europe over its continued support for Ukraine.
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VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: "The masks are off, and now we see that Europe is the one truly behind the war," says Vladimir Solovyov, one of the Kremlin's key messengers, in a recent program.
Ilya Yablokov, a scholar on Russian disinformation, says the media's recasting of heroes and villains has been sudden but not necessarily disorienting for a propaganda machine forever in search of an enemy.
ILYA YABLOKOV: Once the Americans are replaced by the Europeans for the daily work of the so-called Russian media worker - because I cannot call them journalists - nothing's changed. It just - one single piece of the puzzle is replaced by another of the same shape.
MAYNES: Against this backdrop, the U.S. and Russia have engaged in a series of high-level meetings about ending the war, leaving Ukraine and Europe largely on the sidelines. Two nuclear powers deciding the fate of Europe has provided optics straight out of the Cold War, only with results far less grand.
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PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: Putin rejected a Trump-backed ceasefire proposal following a second phone call in March, praising Trump's peace efforts in theory but demanding an end to all Western military support for Ukraine. Critics accuse Putin of feigning support for limited ceasefires - in effect, dragging out negotiations while continuing to push for Ukraine's capitulation on the battlefield.
Sergei Poletaev, a supporter of the war effort who runs the Russian political and security analytics blog "Vatfor," agrees.
SERGEI POLETAEV: (Through interpreter) Yes, of course we see Putin as playing for time. And why is rather obvious. We haven't reached all our goals militarily, and therefore it's not in our interest to stop.
MAYNES: As we talk in a Moscow park, Poletaev tells me he rejects the idea that Trump has given the Kremlin anything by way of concessions. The American leader simply has no choice, says Poletaev, but to accept Russia's gains on the battlefield for what they are and what they could still be.
POLETAEV: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: "The Kremlin is certain that if we keep fighting, we'll not only gain more," he tells me, "but actually achieve the very thing over which this whole conflict started."
POLETAEV: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: The underlying message - Russia will get its way, either through negotiations or by force. But if Putin is in little mood for concessions to Ukraine, he's offering plenty to the U.S.
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PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: From investments in minerals to prisoner exchanges, even offers to help the U.S. in talks with Iran, other Russian deals are very much on the table. A key player in all this - Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
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KIRILL DMITRIEV: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: American educated, and the current head of Russia's sovereign wealth investment fund, Dmitriev has emerged a relentlessly upbeat voice, calling for a new era of U.S.-Russian relations built on business and trade, as he explained in an interview with Fox News during a visit to Washington earlier this month.
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DMITRIEV: So I think one of the big issues between us, we never had really lots of economic cooperation. We believe that economic cooperation will allow us to also solve any political issues and be positive. And I think that positive economic cooperation can happen with President Trump's team.
MAYNES: Gallyamov, the former Putin speech writer, says it's all part of a Kremlin effort to expand negotiations and keep Trump's frustration over a lack of progress on Ukraine at bay.
GALLYAMOV: Since Trump allows himself to be seduced, tempted by these nice proposals, why not? They discussed business and Trump no longer presses. So this is the strategy of Putin.
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MAYNES: In central Moscow, just outside the U.S. embassy, a series of giant pro-war signs promise an inevitable Russian victory, with slogans like, we're united, and a giant letter Z - the Kremlin's chosen symbol of support for the invasion.
And not only that, war recruitment posters are everywhere - on street billboards, in the shops.
It's a reminder that for all the frenetic diplomacy of the past few months, Russia is still very much a country engaged in what it sees as a proxy war with the West and America in particular.
OLGA GRISHAEVA: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: On a nearby street, Olga Grishaeva, a retired engineer, tells me her expectations for change and Trump remain low. "Everything he's doing, he's doing for America," she says. "For Russia, it's the same as it was before. The U.S. still gives weapons to Kyiv and tells them where to fire."
ARTYEM ORLOV: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: Artyem Orlov, a university student, says he doesn't know if the U.S. and Russia will get along but argues it's not just up to Trump. "The American public," he tells me, "also has to want peace with Russia."
ORLOV: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: And some argue there's more than geopolitics at play.
MIKHAIL: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: Mikhail, a licensed psychologist, offers a diagnosis but not his last name, citing concern about reprisals from the government for both.
MIKHAIL: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: "Trump is a narcissist," he says. "A narcissist, or, by definition, unstable." "If Trump doesn't get what he wants from Putin," he adds, "things could end up a lot worse for Russia than they ever were under Biden."
Put another way, no one knows how Trump will react to Putin's mix of slow-walking negotiations on Ukraine and sweet-talking deals elsewhere. The answer may depend on how much America's famously transactional president can appreciate Putin's own art of the deal. Charles Maynes, NPR News, Moscow.
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