During the conversation, the US President and the Russian President in the room were six people: two presidents, two Ministers of foreign Affairs and two interpreters — and no adviser, no assistant, no expert. No pre-prepared program for this meeting, too, was not: last week, adviser on national security, G. R. McMaster (H. R. McMaster) said that this meeting “no specific agenda — the President will be speaking about what you want.”
Almost empty room. A clean Board. Russian-American relations, which have always been quite unusual, now become strange and almost surreal. They also cannot be called predictable — most diplomatic relations are usually more or less predictable because they are based is not any geopolitical or economic interests of Russia and the United States. They are based on the likely interests of the two main players.
The actual results of the meeting of the presidents of the United States and Russia turned out to be mediocre: an agreement on the establishment of a communication channel to discuss the situation in Ukraine, the ceasefire agreement on the part of the Syrian territories, which inspires some hope, although previous attempts were a failure, and also an agreement on the appointment of new ambassadors. But from my point of view, far more important were the personal interests of leaders. Russian President Vladimir Putin got almost everything he wanted from this meeting, in the first few seconds. Beating of the President of trump at his own game, Putin waited for that first would help. He heard the clicks of cameras, and a few minutes later on the Russian sites there is a picture where trump reaches out to Putin arrogant.
And that was the key. For the Russian leader, the value of this meeting, the 99% is that it can be used for propaganda purposes inside Russia. Leading one talk show on the Russian “First channel”, expecting end of this meeting, admired its length (over two hours) and called it proof that trump believes Putin’s most important leader at the summit Big twenty. Twitter was constantly coming up with sarcastic tweets (“Close to Putin, trump looked like a schoolboy”). Being an undemocratic leader of a weakening economy, Putin needs some way to convince the Russians that they need to support it. And he found a reason: he is now located in the center of the world stage. He is in control. He generously offers solutions to many problems — in Ukraine, in Syria, in cyberspace — the occurrence of which, incidentally, he himself contributed.
If you look at this meeting with trump, we can say that it was successful. In light of the ongoing FBI investigation, he had to raise a difficult question about Russia’s intervention in the presidential election in the United States, despite the fact that he acknowledged the existence of this problem is only on Thursday. But he still did it. After the meeting U.S. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson (Rex Tillerson) has focused on the fact that trump has raised this issue, and then put it aside: the leaders decided to move on and not argue about the past. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that trump “made” Putin’s denials, finding them to be true. Now the US President can at least reassure myself that he will no longer have to raise this difficult question.
If you recall the numerous comments of trump over the past few years, the impression that Trump had Putin something else, namely approval and acceptance. I can’t clearly explain why this is so or what is the component of the psychological profile of the tramp determines this need. But he has long admired the Russian dictator, which he repeatedly praised and never criticized. “I’m honored to meet you” — he said during their first conversation. Maybe the thing in the oligarchic manner of Putin, who used the money in order to obtain political power and then used this power to earn more money — much more than the trump. Maybe the fact that Putin used his position to enrich his family and friends — trump doing it too. Judging by the reviews Tillerson, trump got what he expected from this meeting. He spoke about “positive chemical reaction” between the two leaders, adding: “neither one Nor the other did not want to interrupt a meeting.” At some point Melanie trump tried to interrupt them, but to no avail.
So, both leaders got what they wanted. Putin has raised its credibility, and the tramp got a new friend. As for all of us, no one cares what we think. In these respects, an important only two people.
