As President Donald Trump could have told you long ago, no international figure knows how to charm a visiting American like that other fellow who has been sharing the world stage with him for years.

But none of that was obvious on a night way back in 2010, in St. Petersburg, Russia. An audience studded with imported Hollywood stars had settled back for a charity benefit that seemed like it would be just another very Vegas nightclub crooner’s show on a stage halfway around the world.

As the band, featuring a few American jazz artists, struck up the easy, bluesy opening chords, a surprise guest singer seemed to be all about adopting Frank Sinatra’s Vegas nonchalance. He stood at center stage, wearing a fine suit and a tieless shirt open at the collar. His right hand held the mic, his left hand was casually in his pants pocket. But he was far more familiar to this audience than just a mere Sinatra. After all, the guest star had just come to town from his day job, where he’d been running Russia from the Kremlin.

Today all the world would recognize that Vegas-styled singer as the dictator whose troops invaded a sovereign European nation for the first time since Hitler did it – and who has ordered his troops to bomb and slaughter Ukrainian civilians ever since February 2022.

But back on that 2010 night, Vladimir Putin was all about show biz. He was doing Sinatra doing Fats Domino (with just a charming trace of his Russian accent), as he sang:

“I found my thriill,

On Blueberry Hiill.

On Blueberry Hiill,

When I found you…”

Out in Putin’s audience, Kevin Costner, Sharon Stone, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, and other scattered Hollywood glitterati found themselves out-dazzled and loving it. They were laughing and clapping along as Russia’s public hard-working, hard-charming dictator showcased his human side.

A mere three years later, Trump, just another multimillionaire forever on the make for money and fame, was bringing his Miss Universe global beauty pageant (which he owned) to Moscow. So he began early, working every angle he could wangle, virtually begging in public for a chance to even meet Putin.

At 11:17 pm on June 17, 2013, for example, Trump tweeted: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?”

Trump also politicked to make it happen in the only way he knew how to do. He granted an interview to MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, who asked if he and Putin had “a conversational relationship.” Trump claimed he did: “I do have a relationship. And I can tell you that he is very interested in what we are doing here today.”

Trump then launched into the first of those shameless sucking-up-to-Putin refrains you’ve heard from him ever since. Trump said of Putin: “He has really eaten our president’s (that’s former President Barack Obama’s) lunch.... A lot of people would say he’s put himself in the forefront of the world as a leader.” Then Trump broadened his fawning to make it bipartisan: “I think he’s done the same with... President (George W) Bush... Putin has done an amazing job of showing certain leadership that our people have not been able to match.”

But in 2013 Putin found reasons he couldn’t drop by and publicly greet Trump. After all, Denmark’s new king was coming to town and there was all that Moscow traffic, Putin’s office explained. But Trump made new pals among Russia’s pride of oligarchs; he’s been cashing in on their friendship ever since.

And three years later, the massively wealthy Putin was as shocked as you were to discover he, too, really missed a chance to cash in by briefly reigning at Trump’s 2013 Moscow moment. For, in 2016, as you perhaps recall, Americans elected that 2013 Manhattan millionaire-on-the-make as our 45th president.

But Putin, ever the ex-KGB pro, is all about finding the ways to manipulate the world’s most malleable and vulnerable. Even a decade ago, Putin seemed to know how and when to push Trump’s buttons – so he could have his way with Trump ever since. It’s not that hard to figure out. All Putin had to do was watch a YouTube video of the major sucking up that is the sum and substance of Trump’s cabinet meetings.

And lo, the world saw the results of Putin’s expertise (see also: expert tease) at their first summit in Helsinki. We saw Trump publicly accept Putin’s denial that Russia interfered in the U.S. election – rejecting his CIA’s assessments.

Ever since, we’ve all seen how a quick call or public nudge from Putin can inspire Trump to reverse even his firmest public threats of economic sanctions or call off plans for new weapons for Ukraine — until this week.

Putin’s continued massive bombardment of Ukraine civilians and demands for Ukraine to hand over land Russia hasn’t captured before accepting a ceasefire finally caused Trump to cancel plans for a summit with Putin in Budapest. And for the first time in his second presidency, Trump clamped new sanctions on Russia aimed at halting the oil revenue Putin needs to fund his Ukraine war. Trump just barred two of Russia’s largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, from U.S. and international banking and financial systems.

Nobody thinks Putin’s war machine has been Trumped by those sanctions alone. And Putin quickly told Russian reporters and the world: “No self-respecting country ever does anything under pressure.” But this may be the moment when Putin realizes he now has one real chance to end Russia’s economically ruinous war in Ukraine.

Russia can choose the one option America never chose for ending the war in Vietnam. Putin can take the uncomplicated path proposed a half century ago by Vermont’s Republican Sen. George Aiken: Just declare victory and get out.

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