Vladimir Putin used his phone call with Donald Trump on Tuesday to say that the U.S. could get played by Russia — literally.

Putin was talking about ice hockey, but it was also a reference to Trump’s efforts to get a quick ceasefire in Ukraine, whose government fears the U.S. president will agree to major concessions demanded by the Kremlin in order to seal a truce.

The Russian president, who plays ice hockey with a close circle of allies and aides, offered up the idea of staging matches between U.S. and Russian players, according to the Kremlin, which said Trump supported it. That’s as the readouts from the Trump-Putin call by the Kremlin and the White House both emphasized the potential for economic and political cooperation.

The “full-fledged legitimization of cooperation” between the U.S. and Russia on international issues including in the Middle East was the most important outcome of the call, Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said on Telegram.

Putin moved U.S. ties “out of direct dependence on the Ukrainian conflict” and turned Trump’s call for a truce in his favor, while the offer to hold hockey matches helped the “detoxification” of Russia, she said.

The Russian president’s rejection of Trump’s appeal for a full 30-day ceasefire is a setback for U.S. efforts to end the three-year-long war, even as the two sides agreed to continue negotiations.

Putin’s demand to halt foreign military aid and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine as the “key condition” for advancing diplomacy risks driving a wedge between the U.S. and Europe over support for Kyiv, while Russian forces continue fighting on the battlefield.

Putin and Trump trust each other and intend to gradually improve U.S.-Russia relations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday, the state-run Tass news service reported. They didn’t discuss the involvement of European states in a settlement in Ukraine or the deployment of any peacekeeping forces, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a visit to Finland that he’ll speak by phone with Trump later on Wednesday to discuss the U.S. leader’s conversation with Putin.

After Putin agreed to halt attacks on energy infrastructure as his sole concession to Trump’s demand for a truce, Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine came under massive Russian drone attack overnight.

The strikes “after this apparently landmark, fantastic phone call” show that Russia hasn’t eased off on attacking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told ZDF TV on Wednesday. “Putin is playing a game and I’m sure that the U.S. president won’t be able to sit by and watch for long,” he said.

The drone attacks demonstrated “that we must continue to put pressure on Russia,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram. The world should “reject any attempts by Putin to drag out the war,” he said.

The call showed Trump that Putin is blocking peace and makes it more likely he’ll start to exert pressure on Russia, according to one senior Western official, asking not to be identified discussing policy. While there’s a danger that Trump tries to impose Putin’s demands on Ukraine, U.S. allies in the Group of Seven will need to persuade him to focus on pressuring Russia, the official said.

The talks made clear “we’re far, very far from the ceasefire Spain and Europeans want and therefore we’ll continue supporting President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people,” Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares told Spain’s National Public Radio on Wednesday.

Even the Kremlin’s main concession carries advantages for Putin, since Ukrainian drones have targeted Russian refineries, pipelines and energy infrastructure almost daily in attempts to damage Moscow’s war economy. Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid and gas facilities have eased as winter has given way to spring’s warmer weather.

Should the two sides agree to abstain from attacks on energy infrastructure, it will benefit Russia’s oil-processing sector that’s beginning regular spring repairs. The nation’s refineries will keep more capacity online in the absence of drone strikes, making domestic fuel supplies and exports more predictable.

“Trump is hitting up against the ceiling of Russia’s unwillingness for serious peace negotiations,” said Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Meanwhile, Putin can dangle “some tasty joint development deal” in front of Trump in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions, she said.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social account that “many elements of a Contract for Peace” were discussed with Putin and that they’d be “working quickly” to negotiate a ceasefire. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News that a U.S. delegation would travel to Saudi Arabia to continue talks.

The truce on energy infrastructure won’t affect the war and “the fighting will obviously continue with the same intensity,” Igor Korotchenko, a Russian defense analyst said. The Kremlin’s demands will be discussed at the talks between U.S. and Russian officials, he told the RIA Novosti news service.

Ukraine and Europe risk being sidelined in those discussions. The Kremlin readout said Putin and Trump “confirmed their intention to continue efforts aimed at reaching a settlement in Ukraine bilaterally.”

The White House also said that Trump and Putin “stressed the need for improved bilateral relations,” noting that they’d discussed cooperation on preventing Middle East conflicts and the need to stop proliferation of strategic weapons.

There is “huge upside” to improved U.S.-Russia ties, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “This includes enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved.”

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With assistance from Iain Rogers, Daniel Basteiro and Michael Nienaber.

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