At the end of December, an Ilyushin-96 special plane dedicated to high-level Russian government officials flew to the United States and stayed in New York for two full days. However, it was not until the plane returned to Moscow that various sectors belatedly obtained relevant data from flight tracking websites and came to verify it.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not hide it this time and gave a cheerful response. Spokesperson Zakharova said that the plane visit was indeed true, but it was "another group of diplomats" on board. However, she did not clarify the true identity of "who is sacred" on board.

The title of the US media "Newsweek" directly said "Putin's special plane visits the United States", but this is not accurate. Although the IL-96 is indeed Putin's special plane for the visit, there are more than one Aircraft IL-96 in the Russian special flying squadron. As long as you can travel on the IL-96, the level will not be too low.

Not to mention, this visit also has the nature of "secret diplomacy". The identities of the passengers on the plane are definitely not ordinary. What they say can represent the official position of the Russian government to a certain extent. To put it simply, they are President Putin's "Secret Envoy".

Combined with the current relationship between the United States and Russia, it is very intriguing that this Russian special plane went straight to the political center of the United States, who it met and what topics it talked about.

After three years of Russia-Ukraine conflict, the diplomatic interaction between the United States and Russia has fallen to the "freezing point", and only some symbolic communication channels have been maintained. However, the sharp geographical differences between the two sides have made it difficult for such channels to manage even the most basic differences. The significance of its existence is to tell the world that the United States and Russia have not completely broken up.

However, despite the deadlock, there is a turning point. An important variable is that Trump was re-elected as President of the United States and will enter the White House in 20 days. His views on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and US-Russia relations are very different from those of the Biden administration. In the past period, he has repeatedly released signals to stop military aid to Ukraine and communicate directly with Putin.

Russia has also responded positively. Putin himself has repeatedly said that he is open to direct contact with Trump. If the relationship between the United States and Russia can be eased as a result, Russia's external environment can also be greatly improved, so the Putin government will not miss any opportunity.

This Il-96 flying to the United States is a powerful footnote that Russia intends to reconstruct communication channels with the United States on the eve of Trump's inauguration.

Therefore, the answer to who the passengers on the plane met in New York actually lies there, but no one dares to make casual conclusions until further confirmation from the United States and Russia. This time, even the US media did not get any inside information, which already explains a lot.

As for how the talks went, Russia may not be eager to release detailed information to the outside world. As for the White House, they probably have no idea. What's more, there is probably no topic between Putin and the Biden administration that would be worthy of Russia dispatching an Il-96, spanning more than 7,000 kilometers, to come to New York specifically to discuss it.

As for Trump, it is rare for him to be "tight-lipped". The public contact between Trump and the Putin government at this time, no matter what the motivation, is tantamount to a shock bomb for the American public opinion field, and handling it in a low-key manner may be the best choice at the moment.

In fact, the Trump team may have been in contact with the Kremlin as early as the transition period. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov mentioned not long ago that Trump’s staff had proposed several political solutions to the Russia-Ukraine conflic, such as suspending Ukraine's membership of NATO, or deploying European "peacekeeping forces" in Ukraine.

But Russia is not satisfied with this and believes that this does not fundamentally solve the problem.

Lavrov also mentioned that until he was officially inaugurated, in the eyes of Russia, Trump was always the "elected president" of the United States, but what Russia wanted to see was an official signal that the U.S. government wanted to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

In other words, the current private contacts between Russia and Trump's team are not considered formal channels. If the United States and Russia are to play the expected role, they will have to wait at least until the day Trump is sworn in as President of the United States.

To be fair, even if U.S.-Russian diplomacy is restarted in 2025, the core differences between the United States and Russia at the geopolitical level will still remain. Trump's coming to power has, at best, made it possible for U.S.-Russian diplomatic relations to return to their original point.

Moreover, this process does not happen overnight, and requires stable and pragmatic dialogue between the diplomatic teams of the two countries.

But no matter how you think about it, Trump and the senior cabinet officials surrounding him have little to do with the word "pragmatic." On the issue of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the two sides are inevitably haggling. What Russia wants is to end the conflict once and for all and let the West admit its strategic failure. In addition to taking over the four eastern states of Ukraine, it can also bring Ukraine back into its sphere of influence.

Even if it is an isolationist and "America First" person like Trump, it is impossible to completely ignore the security demands of European allies. In order to prevent the United States from sitting idly by, the EU must be happy to meet a series of Trump's demands. At this time, it is Russia's turn to bid.

From this perspective, Trump’s high-profile push for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is just waiting for Europe and Russia to take turns making offers to him. This is indeed in line with his businessman style in international politics. But Russia can accept this. Putin has said before that politics is the art of compromise.