New Delhi, June 14 -- MOSCOW - The telegram arrived on the right day. Vladimir Putin sent Donald Trump birthday greetings on Sunday as the American president turned 80, but the words the Kremlin chose were doing more work than the occasion required.

"I am confident that through joint efforts we could truly give Russian-US relations a new quality, and also do a lot for ensuring security and stability on the global stage," Putin wrote in the congratulatory message, published on the Kremlin's official website. It was not a birthday card. It was a bid.

The telegram lands at a moment when the architecture of that proposed new relationship remains largely aspirational. Ukraine peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv, which resumed in Istanbul in ...