Donald Trump snubbed Putin by refusing to call him on his birthday, as both the U.S. and Russia finally admit the pair’s long-running bromance is all but over.
Putin turned 73 on Tuesday, and spent the occasion gloating about the war in Ukraine while fielding a series of congratulatory phone calls from world leaders eager to kiss the ring.
Notably absent from the list of well-wishers, however, was Donald Trump, who did not wish Putin a happy birthday despite the Russian president personally calling him on his 79th birthday back in June for a lengthy chat.
The snub clearly caught the Kremlin off guard, TASS reports, with Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov dodging the question at a press conference and hinting that Trump may instead call him on Wednesday in a desperate attempt to save face.
Although a small gesture in isolation, the cold shoulder represents a dramatic and public cooling of the relationship between the two leaders, which saw Trump roll out a literal red carpet for his Russian counterpart back in August and brag to the world that their friendship could end the war in Ukraine.
During the summit in Anchorage, Trump was caught gloating to allies that “I think he wants to make a deal for me, you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.”
But two months after the historic summit failed to produce any meaningful progress in Ukraine, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov admitted that any “powerful momentum” built by the face-to-face meeting had all but evaporated.
“Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that the powerful momentum from Anchorage toward reaching agreements has, through the efforts of opponents and supporters of the ‘war to the last Ukrainian’ – primarily among Europeans – been largely exhausted,” Ryabkov said on Wednesday.
“This is the result of the destructive actions primarily by Europeans, which we speak about openly and directly.”
Trump, meanwhile, reportedly told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during a meeting this week that he thought negotiating peace in Ukraine would be “one of the easy ones,” and that he was frustrated by Putin’s refusal to negotiate.
“I get along very well with Putin, and I thought that would have been… I’m very disappointed in him because I thought this would have been an easy one to settle, but it turned out to be maybe tougher than the Middle East,” Pravda reports.
Trump shocked the world last month by appearing to throw his full support behind Ukraine after publicly supporting Russia throughout much of his political career, backing Kyiv to regain all of its occupied terrain and “maybe even go further” in a post on Truth Social.
Putin, on the other hand, has been strengthening alliances with China’s leader-for-life Xi Jinping building an anti-Western coalition described as the “axis of upheaval” with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, that seeks to displace the U.S. and establish Beijing as the dominant global superpower.
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