When he penned his eyewitness account of the 1917 Russian Revolution, American journalist John Reed famously titled it Ten Days That Shook The World. But 10 days is too long for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. They’ve shaken things up in a week.
It began with the Putin-Trump telephone conversation on 12 February and their presidential pledges to kickstart relations.
It continued with the Munich Security Conference and a schism between Europe and America.
Next stop Saudi Arabia for the Russia-US talks: the first high-level in-person contacts between the two countries since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
It is a week that has upended traditional alliances, left Europe and Ukraine scrambling to respond, raised fears for European security and put Russia where it wants to be: at the top table of global politics, without having made any concessions to get there.
