Vladimir Putin‘s propagandists have taken to TV to gleefully celebrate ‘victory’ in Ukraine after Donald Trump signalled he was ready to start peace talks immediately to end the ‘horrible, very bloody war’.
Acclaimed Russian filmmaker and routine propaganda Kremlin mouthpiece Karen Shakhnazarov praised Putin for his ‘intrigues’ and shrewd politcking on Russian TV, before laughing at the fallout in the halls of Europe.
Shakhnazarov jibed to a panel of compatriots over Trump’s historic call to Vladimir Putin this week: ‘It’s an achievement, the blockade has been broken.
‘It means a lot to all of them, that the president of the United States, the mightiest nation in the West, as great as the Roman Empire, made this call.
‘It’s as if Julius Caesar himself telephoned a barbarian, a chieftain of some Germanic tribe. This alone is already a success,’ he mocked, as host Vladimir Solovyov laughed on the sidelines.
‘His intrigues have worked. Who knows what possibilities there will be in the future.’
He concluded that ‘either way I believe that this is a good day for our politics, for our leadership, for our diplomacy, and for our country’ to plenty of laughter.
Trump has shocked America’s partners in Europe with pledges to end the war in the context of retracting support and focus from the continent while demanding access to Ukrainian minerals in return for an unclear commitment to long-term security.
While the President has reiterated support for Ukraine, comments suggesting the country ‘may be Russian someday‘ have unsettled allies, fearing what the precedent of allowing a belligerent dictator to absorb territory through aggression may mean for world security.
Shakhnazarov (top right) joked about the diplomatic efforts announced this week as host Solovyov (top left) laughed
Shakhnazarov told panelists that it was a ‘good day for our country’ after Trump said he was engaging with Putin over the fate of Ukraine
The Russian filmmaker praised the progress in diplomacy widely seen as helping Russia
Europe roundly expressed its fury over the Trump administrations perceived concessions to Russia this week.
In a blunt address to reporters at NATO talks in Brussels, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas insisted that no deal ‘behind our backs’ could work, as she accused Washington of ‘appeasement’ towards Russia.
‘We shouldn’t take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started because it plays to Russia’s court and it is what they want,’ she said, after American defence secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that Ukraine could not expect to recoup its lost territory, or to become a member of NATO.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected any ‘dictated peace’ and his defence minister called it ‘regrettable’ that Washington was already making ‘concessions’ to the Kremlin.
French President Emmanuel Macron told the FT that Trump’s return to the White House was an ‘electroshock’ for Europe, and warned that ‘peace that is a capitulation’ would be ‘bad news for everyone’, including the United States.
Sir Keir Starmer reiterated support for Ukraine and told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine is still on an ‘irreversible path’ to joining NATO, and insisted that any talks on the fate of Ukraine must involve Ukraine.
The Kremlin said this week that Putin and Trump had agreed the ‘time has come to work together,’ insisting it wanted to organise a face-to-face meeting promptly and that broader European security should be on the agenda.
Trump, who has been pushing for a quick end to the war, denied that Ukraine was being excluded from direct negotiations between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.
Solovyov laughed as the Kremlin propagandist gave his monologue
Other guests reacted as Shakhnazarov said it was a good day for the country
Ukrainian servicemen operate a tank near the frontline at an undisclosed location in the Kharkiv region, eastern Ukraine, 10 February 2025
Ukrainian soldiers of the 505th marines battalion receive training in trench digging, medical care and drone operations in Kurakhove, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on January 16, 2025
But Zelenskyy admitted that it was ‘not very pleasant’ that Trump had called Putin first before speaking to him, adding the US president had said he wanted to speak to both leaders together.
Russia’s long serving foreign minister Sergei Lavrov slammed European politicians for being ‘stunned when two well-mannered, polite people had a normal, elementary conversation’.
Moscow‘s top diplomat, 74, said: ‘This telephone conversation is being reported as something out of the ordinary.
‘That is what the Biden administration led by its president and their European satellites have brought themselves to – to the point where they have discarded dialogue, discarded diplomacy as a method of communication with the outside world,’ he said.
‘This is probably why many people in the West, starting with the leaders of the European Union, were stunned when two well-mannered, polite people had a normal, elementary conversation.’
He went on to wonder why the world was ‘in a kind of a daze’ over the one and a half hour phone call.
‘Politics is about sitting down and talking and finding common ground,’ he said.
‘I am very sorry that the reaction of the West shows that there are practically no such people left there.
‘And when two well-mannered – I will say it again – people show how to do politics, I hope it will sober up those who have forgotten it and make them reread their history and political science textbooks.’
