Putin will try to deceive Trump again. This week’s meeting in Alaska is bad decision - Bloomberg
Ukraine and its European partners fear that US President Donald Trump will fall into a trap again during his meeting in Alaska with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on Friday, 15 August.
This was reported by Bloomberg, Censor.NET cites ZN.ua as saying.
As noted, these concerns are not unfounded. Indeed, if Trump wants to come out of the situation as a master negotiator rather than someone who is easily manipulated, the wisest move might be to postpone the summit until he is better prepared.
For the Russian dictator, this is an opportunity that he can use both to cancel the threat of new US sanctions and to continue his war against Ukraine.
This is exactly what happened earlier this year, when a former KGB officer successfully took advantage of Trump's desire to conclude a peace deal on Russia's war against Ukraine and restore economic relations with Moscow. Regardless of how much Trump was willing to concede, including the lifting of sanctions, Putin saw only one thing: a strategic opportunity. When the United States announced that it no longer wanted to finance arms supplies to Ukraine, Putin took the logical step of accelerating the pace of military action to take advantage of Kyiv's weakened position. In the end, even Trump had to admit that he had been duped.
Given the 8 August deadline for Trump to impose new financial sanctions on Russia for its intransigence, Putin's task when Witkoff arrived in Moscow was once again to do what was necessary to delay decisive action by the US, while making sure that any concrete results would strengthen Russia's position. So far, everything is going smoothly. The Russian dictator has "got something for nothing".
The first priority was to prevent Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from attending the talks. The presence of the Ukrainian leader at the summit would require real negotiations, which would make it more difficult for Russia to hide its lack of interest in peace. By insisting on a bilateral meeting with Trump, Putin may try to offer terms that the current US administration can accept, but he knows that Ukraine will not. This would again make Zelenskyy "guilty": Trump would again accuse the Ukrainian leader of obstructing peace.
The second goal was to find a venue that would demonstrate to both Russians and leaders from around the world that Putin is no longer a pariah who avoids travelling for fear of arrest after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Kremlin leader for war crimes. Indeed, this will be Putin's first visit to the United States (not counting his trip to the UN General Assembly in New York) since 2007, before his invasion of Georgia. The summit in Alaska, a US state that once belonged to the Russian Empire, will send a strong signal of Putin's "rehabilitation" and will also point to Russia's "long historic reach" as a "great power".
Trump's invitation was a victory for the Kremlin. If the summit also helps to delay US sanctions or leads to a "peace plan" that sows discord with Ukraine and its allies, it will be an even bigger victory for Russia. But any genuine path to a lasting cessation of hostilities will require much more pressure, both financial and military, and preparation. If media reports, including an article in the German newspaper Bild, are accurate, Putin and his officials tricked Witkoff, a businessman with no diplomatic experience before becoming Trump's special envoy, into accepting the offer last week, leaving him in the dark about what exactly was being offered.
Whatever Witkoff may have misunderstood, it was enough for the US president to suggest a potential "land swap". The Kremlin seems willing to consider a proposal that Ukraine hand over the part of Donbas that Russian forces have not yet been able to capture in exchange for a ceasefire. So, not an exchange of territory, but a transfer of territory to Russia in exchange for a ceasefire that is likely to be temporary.
The Kremlin may also be willing to offer an air ceasefire to avoid sanctions, but this is not as big a concession as it may seem. Unlike two years ago, when it was a one-sided campaign, Ukrainian drones are now causing increasing damage to Russian energy and military targets.
"Ukrainians know they’ll to have to cede control of territory to end Putin’s invasion. But they have in mind the kinds of concessions made to the Josef Stalin in Germany at the end of World War II. He secured control over the eastern half of that country for the Soviet Union, but West Germany retained its sovereign claim over the east and – eventually – got it back," the newspaper reminds.
There’s no indication Putin wants that kind of deal. It will not contribute to achieving his real goals in the war, which are to secure control over Ukraine and to have the United States recognize Russia's sphere of influence in Europe "uncontested" by NATO. Putin has never hidden this. This is what he means when he says he is ready to discuss a truce as soon as the "root causes" of the war are addressed. There will be a time and place for a Trump-Putin summit. But it is unlikely that this week's meeting in Alaska is a good solution, Bloomberg notes.
