Putin makes a smart move, again

All the talk was about Trump possibly offering Tomahawk cruise missiles to Zelensky at their meeting in the White House today. Then suddenly, all change. Putin and Trump had a two-hour chat on the phone and the Russian president agreed to have a summit with Trump in Budapest to try and arrange a ceasefire and potentially an end to the war. In one brilliant stroke, the Tomahawk issue was pushed to one side. Trump will say that his announcement that he was considering giving Zelensky Tomahawks was what forced Putin to cave in. But actually Putin's chat with Trump was all about stopping the US president from going ahead with providing the 1,500-mile-range missiles. Trump could hardly declare he had decided to give Tomahawks to Ukraine only hours after he had announced a "peace" summit with Putin. The summit will probably lead to very little. If there is a ceaefire agreed, judging by previous ceasefire pledges, it won't last long and the war will carry on. Let's hope this is too cynical, and Trump will get his way. But Putin knows how to outsmart Trump.