a day ago
How Russia is preparing for Putin's meeting with Trump
Amidst contradictory leaks and rumours coming from the US administration, no one is quite sure what to expect when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday – not even the Russian press. Nonetheless, they seem rather less convinced that Trump is about to stitch up the Ukrainians than the Western media.
Of course, there is satisfaction at the prospect of Putin's first visit to the US since 2015. Facing a campaign intended to try and isolate Russia, Putin had just sent troops into Syria to reverse what seemed then the imminent collapse of the Assad regime, and with US assets also deployed in the area, then-president Barack Obama had had no choice but to meet his Russian counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The scenes of a clearly uncomfortable US president were met with delight by the Russian nationalists. One hawkish university professor even had a picture of it in his office, and when asked why, he grinned and told me: 'That was a meeting Obama didn't want to have, but we made him. We showed him that Russia could not be ignored.'
There is a similar sense among the Russian media that for Putin simply to meet Trump is already a win for Russia. However, there is distinctly less triumphalism over the prospects of a deal to end the war and a sense that they are not getting a clear steer from the Kremlin. As usual, when the Russian press is faced with a politically sensitive topic without such guidance, they fall back on selectively picking from foreign press reports and experts to allow them to write something without actually hanging their own editorial hats on their positions. There are times when this is harder than others, and then all kinds of fringe YouTubers and similar random commentators are pressed into service to make the 'right' point safely.
Thus, the most upbeat predictions are attributed to foreign commentators. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, for example, finds some suitable American professor willing to say that 'everyone knows' Zelensky will have to surrender territory, as he has no choice given Ukraine's 'lack of manpower, weapons, strategy, finances and fighting spirit'. (Most Russians at the front line might question that assessment, especially of fighting spirit.) In Vzglyad, the leader of the marginal French Eurosceptic Patriots party, Florian Philippot, is quoted as saying that 'the Europsychos are hysterical at the sight of approaching peace'. By contrast, editorial comment tends to be much more cautious. The business newspaper Vedomosti warns that 'immediate results and breakthroughs, especially in the Ukrainian direction, should not be expected yet'.
Western readers might be surprised to read that while their media is focusing on the 'will they/won't they' drama of a potential deal over Ukraine, though, in Russia this is not necessarily being treated as the main story. Indeed, the nationalist Tsargrad news outlet cites a pundit claiming that '99 mper cent of the time, the conversations will not be about Ukraine at all.'
Instead, Fyodor Lukyanov, one of Moscow's main foreign policy interpreters, focuses in the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta less on what the summit may mean for the war, and more on what it says about Russia's renewed standing as a great power. He examines the prospects for a new relationship with Trump's America, as the two leaders meet in isolated Alaska, 'removed from third parties… one on one, the rest of the world watching the stage from the auditorium, spellbound'.
Even so, on every side there are cautions not to expect miracles. In Izvestia, Andrei Kortunov, one of the dwindling band of relatively liberal foreign policy academics, warned that 'the anti-Russian consensus in the United States remains broad and relatively stable' so that expectations ought to be moderated. To him:
The value of the planned summit probably lies not in reaching some specific fateful agreements but in giving a new impetus to bilateral relations. In other words, to set in motion the heavy gears of cumbersome state mechanisms, which without such an impetus will not budge on their own.
In other words, this is just the start of a process, at best, and one which many will be eager to derail. As a commentator notes in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, in Alaska, there may be 'no British spies, Ukrainian agents or European 'well-wishers' eager to disrupt the dialogue'. Nevertheless, the Russian press is united in highlighting the degree to which 'Russophobes' in Kyiv, in Washington, in London and in the European Union are briefing against the meeting now and will seek to undermine any outcomes they don't like after.
The overall sense is far from the jubilation assumed in much Western coverage. On Ukraine, there is cautious optimism, but also an awareness that even if a deal is struck in Alaska, there are still many obstacles to the kind of peace that would be a victory for Russia. Of course, there is also an awareness that even if a deal is derailed by Kyiv, that is advantageous for Moscow as a chance to frame Kyiv and the Europeans as the warmongers. Yet there is a wider hope, quite possibly unrealistic, that regardless of that, some kind of new relationship, perhaps built on sanctions relief in return for privileged access to the Russian market and natural resources, can begin to be built with the US. And as for the Kremlin, it seems to be keeping its cards close to its chest, not even showing them to its tame newspapers.
