The game of tell-and-consequences begins with a prompt.
In response each player must then write down a word or phrase without knowing what word or phrase has been written by the previous players. When the sequence and accumulation of words and phrases from all the players around the table is complete, the composite result is unrolled and read out.
The game was an American invention in 1958. The juxtaposition of meanings was intended to be funny. It was also a best-seller and made the inventors a lot of money.
In the games which President Donald Trump plays, making money is always the objective.
In the game which Trump and President Vladimir Putin are playing over the negotiations to end the war in the Ukraine, the sequence and accumulation of words have begun to lose their meaning. This isn’t funny.
Russian sources confirm the conviction in the Kremlin that Trump knew of the plan of the June 1 nuclear airbase attack and approved it. When Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telephoned Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the evening after the attack, it was tell-and-consequences. Lavrov told Rubio he was instructed to ask what the Americans had known; to inform him that whatever he said, the operation was a violation of Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy; and that accordingly it would have grave consequences. (In military escalation jargon as in hospital patient bulletins, grave is more serious than serious.) Lavrov said that the first consequence Russia expected from the U.S. was public acknowledgement, and also public acceptance that Russian retaliation would follow. Lavrov also told Rubio that Putin expected to speak directly to Trump.
Putin spoke first at a meeting with government officials, but he didn’t refer to the airbase attack. Instead, it was one of the “criminal provocations”, as Lavrov said to Putin at the meeting—terrorist actions as other officials said. The Russian position would be not to make explicit the strategic consequences, and as Lavrov said,
not to fall into the trap of these provocations, which are clearly designed to derail the talks and continue arms deliveries from European nations.
Nothing has followed from Rubio.
On June 3, Trump’s representative for the end-of-war negotiations, Keith Kellogg, was told to say on television that there had been a “[nuclear] triad attack” and that the rising “risk levels…are to me basically unacceptable.”
The next day Trump and Putin spoke by telephone. Trump acknowledged that “we discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides. It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace. President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.”
Immediately afterwards, Yury Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy spokesman, issued a public read-out of the call which was published on the Kremlin website. Ushakov claimed there had been “targeted attacks on entirely civilian targets and civilians on direct orders from the Kiev regime. These attacks unequivocally constitute an act of terrorism under international law and, in our view, the Kiev regime has essentially degenerated into a terrorist organisation. The Russian side did not fall for the provocations and, as you know, the second round has effectively taken place in Istanbul…Regarding the strikes on military airfields, this issue was also discussed. Donald Trump reiterated that Americans were not informed in advance about them.”
That’s the Kremlin’s English. The Kremlin’s Russian said “Дональд Трамп вновь подтвердил”. This means Trump was denying involvement of “Americans” for the second time. Trump was repeating the line Rubio had given Lavrov on June 1.
The Russians listening to Trump believed he was being evasive–that meant the Americans had been fully engaged in the operation against the nuclear bombers and could have stopped it if Trump had given the order. In the conversation between the presidents which followed, Putin said the consequences would be strategic if Trump failed to respond publicly. They would be less than strategic, Putin said, if Trump would tolerate the retaliation and continue backing the negotiations in Istanbul on the Russian terms.
Strategic retaliation meant the Oreshnik for decapitation of the Ukrainian leadership. Less than strategic meant what the Russian Defense Ministry announced on June 6:
Last night [June 5] , in response to the terrorist acts of the Kiev regime, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a massive strike with high-precision long-range air, sea and land-based weapons, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles, at design bureaus, enterprises for the production and repair of weapons and military equipment of Ukraine, workshops for the assembly of unmanned aerial vehicles, flight personnel training centres, and as well as warehouses of weapons and military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The target of the strike has been achieved. All designated objectives have been achieved.
This was the consequence that Trump and Putin had discussed and agreed.
Hours later, when Trump was on board his aircraft, he invited a reporter to tell more.
[Question] Mr. President, um, on Russia, Ukraine. Um, did, did the Ukraine drone strikes against the n-–the bombers inside Russia, the airfields, did that change your view at all of what Zelensky, the cards he has–[Inaudible]. [Donald Trump] Well, they gave, they gave, uh, Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of’ ’em last night. That’s the thing I didn’t like about it. When I saw it, I said, ‘Here we go. Now it’s gonna be a strike.’ You know, I did something that people don’t talk about and I don’t talk about very much, but we solved a big problem, a nuclear problem, potentially, with India and with Pakistan…
Source: https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-air-force-one-june-6-2025/
Trump was repeating the fabrication he introduced the day before (June 5) at his Oval Office session with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump is signalling that the triad attack he had accepted in advance now placed the U.S. and Russia on the brink of nuclear war. Trump was lying on June 6, just as he had to Merz on June 5, that he had stopped India and Pakistan from escalating to nuclear warfare. But he had also assured Merz that he had no intention of withdrawing U.S. forces, and their nuclear weapons, from Germany.
Source: https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-bilat-friedrich-merz-germany-june-5-2025/
[Question] Are you worried that there might be a nuclear breakout with Russia, Ukraine? Are you worried that that could get—[Donald Trump] I don’t. I hope not. I hope not. I think it’s a war that would’ve never happened. If I were president, that wouldn’t have happened. I certainly hope not.
The Russians know with certainty that Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Rubio had intervened after the Indian Air Force had destroyed Pakistan’s air defences and command-control of their nuclear bomb-delivery aircraft, and after the Sargodha airbase strike had blocked the storage bunkers for the Pakistan Air Force’s nuclear weapons.
Putin has continued to say that Trump should be given the benefit of the doubt for the continuing negotiations in Istanbul, plus more time to demonstrate if he will stop supplying the Kiev regime with new Patriot missile batteries and other air defence weapons.
They were the priority of the mission to Washington during last week (June 3-5) by Andrei Yermak and other Ukrainian officials. They were also asking for Trump’s agreement to start the Lindsey Graham sanctions against Moscow, Delhi and Beijing; and Trump’s agreement to meet Zelensky at the G7 summit in Canada on June 15-17.
Semi-official Russian reports in Moscow claim Yermak didn’t get what he was asking for.
Left: “Yermak meets with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington: Discusses Frontline Situation and Strengthening Support. The Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine also spoke about meetings with the Russians in Istanbul, the future of negotiations, and prisoner exchanges. He emphasized that Ukraine has done everything possible to achieve peace and is ready for a ceasefire, but since Russia opposes it, additional sanctions are necessary.”
Right: Yermak meets Kellogg in Washington, June 3. Yermak also met with presidential negotiator Steven Witkoff.
Source: https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/06/deputy-secretary-landaus-meeting-with-ukrainian-head-of-presidential-office-yermak-and-first-deputy-prime-minister-svyrydenko/
Officially, according to the State Department communiqué, Trump was still “call[ing] for continued diplomatic efforts.”
Then on Saturday (June 7) the Ukrainians put a stop to the exchanges of prisoners of war and bodies of dead soldiers, which had been formally agreed at the Istanbul meeting on June 2. According to statements from the Russian Defense Ministry and Vladimir Medinsky, the lead negotiator in Istanbul,
in strict accordance with the Istanbul agreements, on June 6, the Russian side launched a humanitarian action to transfer more than 6,000 bodies of dead soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as to exchange wounded and seriously ill prisoners of war and prisoners of war under the age of 25. The first batch of frozen bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers in the amount of 1,212 has already arrived in refrigerated trucks at the exchange area. The rest are coming. In addition, Ukraine has received the first list of 640 prisoners of war of the categories ‘wounded’, ‘seriously ill’ and ‘youth’ [under 25] in order to begin the exchange.
The contact group of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is located on the border with Ukraine. However, the Ukrainian side unexpectedly postponed indefinitely both the acceptance of the bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war. For some reason, their group of negotiators did not even arrive at the exchange site. The reasons are called different–and rather strange. We urge Kiev to strictly adhere to the schedule and all agreements reached, and immediately begin the exchange. As we agreed, let 1.2 thousand soldiers and officers from each side have a chance to return home. We call for the bodies of 6 thousand soldiers and officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to be finally taken away so that their families can bury them humanely. We’re here. We are fully operational. International TV channels, news agencies, and correspondents can come and see for themselves that this is the case. Russia always keeps its word.
“This situation once again clearly shows what any agreements with the Nazi regime in Kiev are really worth,” commented leading Russian military blogger, Boris Rozhin.
The Ukrainian side issued its version of the Saturday standoff.
In parallel, Russian sources acknowledge the Kremlin has the unanticipated problem of assessing what some are calling Trump’s public conflict with Elon Musk as the Khodorkovsky Moment. This is a reference to Putin’s response to the personal political challenge he faced from oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in October 2003. Khodorkorsky was arrested, tried and convicted of fraud and tax evasion; jailed for ten years; then sent into exile in the UK.
Trump has acknowledged that he is considering “very serious consequences” for Musk. These consequences, the president has added, include cancellation of U.S. government contracts with Musk’s companies and “investigations into his companies.” “I’ll take a look at everything. I look at everything. He’s got a lot of money.”
Asked for Putin’s reaction, spokesman Dmitry Peskov appeared to be taking Trump’s side:
We are in no way going to interfere in this or comment on it in any way. I am sure that the U.S. president will deal with this situation himself…Again, the presidents of the countries are simultaneously engaged in a huge number of different cases, more or less important, and the heads of state have enough time for everything.
Other Russian officials appear to be taking Musk’s side.
Source: https://x.com/MedvedevRussiaE/status/1930906615336636737
According to Dmitry Rogozin, the Zaporozhe senator, combat commander at the front, and future presidential candidate: “Elon, don’t worry! They respect you in Russia. If you have insurmountable problems in the USA, come to us and become one of us, a Leopard Sarmat fighter. Here you will find reliable comrades and complete freedom of technical creativity.” Rogozin was being ironical, but also more kindly towards Musk than he has been in the past.
He also warned Musk of the Khodorkovsky lesson:
When some people have too much free money, they also have a lot of free time. But they do not spend it to read Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Gogol, Pushkin and Tolstoy. They spend it on dreams of power. Too much free time and too much money—these are the components that lead people from big business to the desire for power. And so turns out to be too much… Make money on Pentagon contracts and being a political platform at the same time? No, it won’t work. Don’t ruin yourself, Elon! Don’t get into politics.
Trump himself echoes Peskov’s comment, telling NBC he has no plans to speak with Musk because “I’m too busy doing other things”. “Honestly,” he told reporters on Air Force One,
I’ve been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran, working on so many d-–I’m, I’m not thinking about Elon.
In Moscow, sources say they had expected Putin’s turn-the-other-cheek tactic to allow Trump time to demonstrate the gains which the Kremlin believes can still be achieved with Trump–“several weeks, not months”.
Trump is distracted now, yes. It’s unclear from his changing remarks whether he did or did not condemn the Ukrainian airbase raid and the Russian retaliation. Let’s see what follows now that Ukrainians are walking away from the agreement on the dead and POWs. Let’s wait