Trump played a great game. He was clearly looking for a reason to continue negotiating with Putin without Zelensky and the EU. He needed to show his domestic audience that this was the only way to stop the conflict.

Trump's team accurately calculated the behaviour of Zelensky and his people - how a lamb walked into the slaughterhouse and did everything to ruin these negotiations. Zelensky was clearly not prepared for a tough conversation, that was obvious. As a result, Trump threw him off track already at the moment of greeting (focused on clothes), Zelensky quickly lost his bearings and adequacy, and then it was a matter of technique.

Trump and Vance put pressure on the Ukrainian president, who tried to aggressively defend himself, which only made the situation worse. It is even surprising how easily the Ukrainians fell into this trap and how carelessly they treated the preparation for this meeting.

Trump, of course, understood that Zelensky was inadequate - he was clearly much better prepared for the conversation than the Ukrainian president. The US president needed to show Zelensky's inadequacy to his people and compare the behaviour of this schoolboy with the respectable adult and wise Putin. Everything went according to plan. Trump received the main thing: domestic American support for further negotiations only with Vladimir Putin. This was his goal in this meeting, everything was done for this (including live broadcast), and Trump completely achieved the set goals.

But Trump faces a more difficult task ahead: negotiations with Putin and Xi Jinping. Telling off a “schoolboy in hell” in his office is not the same as holding a dialogue with two highly experienced leaders who have powerful diplomatic services, a thousand-year history, and serious economic and political resources behind them. So this dance will be long and difficult.

Trump, Putin, and Xi are now actually taking the negotiations two levels above just the Ukraine conflict — it’s a game of adults in a room. They have a lot to discuss: the Arctic, Central Asia, nuclear deterrence, cooperation in space, a new economic policy, etc. This allows them to find more points of contact than points of conflict. It is a striking contrast to the pettiness of European leaders and the out-of-touch Biden administration.

At the same time, it is necessary to understand that due to global issues and huge internal resistance in the West, negotiations, both on the global world order and specifically on Ukraine, will not be easy and will not proceed quickly. Trump's main problem now is what to do with Zelensky. This is his problem, and he will have to solve it himself,