The meeting of US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is likely to be held May 25 or 27 in one of the European countries, according to Kremlin sources.
The two leaders have been preparing for a long time and the Russians have decided that the time has come for the meeting, given that the relations between Russia and the United States sank into a greater crisis than it was during Barack Obama's time.
Three meetings
According to Russian media reports, Trump is coming to Europe to attend three very important meetings: at the NATO summit in Brussels, at the meeting of the G7 countries in the Sicilian town of Taormina and to meet G20 leaders in the vicinity of Hamburg in the month of June.
Although there were speculations that they would meet in Hamburg, the meeting will occur earlier, either in Belgium (before the NATO summit or after it) or in Italy (before the G7 summit or afterward), and there is a very likely variant of meeting in a third, yet unnamed country.
Political scientist Andrej Kortunov says that the topics of the talks will be narrowed and that the main item at the Putin-Trump meeting will be Syria and Ukraine since that is the biggest issue between the two countries.
Russians are analyzing Trump
Russian political scientist Andrej Susencov points out that the meeting is important because both leaders are "loyal to personal diplomacy." Putin and Trump are very reliant on direct communication in a relaxed atmosphere.
Moscow was thrilled with Trump's victory, hoping that he would be willing to share the opinions with Russia. The Russians are hoping that he would behave fiercely against the European Union, precisely to reduce its influence between Washington and Brussel. In that area Moscow always remained short sleeved, so they are hoping to change that.
Those hopes were reduced after Syrian attack, and support to Ukraine. The Russians have now begun to analyze Trump in detail. They are saying they still don’t know what to expect from the new president because he is completely unpredictable, so the Russians want to hear what they can hope for firsthand. "The blast of Trump's statements, which are mutually disputed, is a reflection of the question of how to build relations with the United States," says the Russian agency Lenta.ru in its analysis.
The euphoria was thus replaced by restraint and discomfort due to Trump's unpredictability. "We already miss a predictable Obama," says Kommersant.
Unity and selfishness of the American administration is very annoying to Moscow. Russia feels that no personal encounter will contribute to strengthening relations if Trump continues his practice of making decisions without consultation and ignoring the views of other factors on the international scene. According to Kommersant, such relationship and clash with Trump have both China and the EU as the most powerful factors on the world political scene.
