People are waiting for breathtaking the possible meeting of Vladimir Putin with Volodimir Zelenskithat Donald Trump would so much like, but still does not seem to be possible.
In an analysis, Politico is trying to explain the reasons that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not seek a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodimir Zelenski, despite efforts to return to Ukraine.
“Details, details. Things to do. Things to complete. Don’t bother me in detail, just tell me when they are done. ” These are the words of Jimmy Price, a baron of cocaine in the 2004 Layer Cake film. But Mafia’s commands to his subordinates, given to the equivalent of Mar-a-Lago, a club in the lush London region, eventually shape the conditions for its destruction, Politico initially reports.
THE Donald Trump He is also not a man of details – except perhaps when it comes to shaping his luxurious brand, referring to the fancy decoration of hotels, golf courses and casinos. While he may be anxious about which curtains he will hang in his hotel rooms, when it comes to diplomacy from which tens of thousands of lives hang, shows less interest in the details, focusing on the personal interactions of the leaders.
The details are for the subordinates, such as the Foreign Minister of “Little Marco” and his golf friend and envoy- for everywhere- Steve Witkov, who unfortunately also has a weak relationship with the details and a tendency to hear only what he wants to hear. Trump is simply waiting for him to tell him when Peace is ready “in the oven,” the report says.
Whether he knows it or not, Trump is a fan of the “theory of the great man”, an idea that the Victorian essayist and lover of heroes Thomas Carllail made, who considers history guided by excellent leaders. This neglects the most complex dynamics of culture and history, politics and the economy.
And for Trump, everything is personalized – and everything has to do with personal chemistry.
During his meeting last week with half a dozen of European leaders and Volodimir Zelenski, Trump was caught in an open microphone explaining to Emmanuel Macron, France that Putin wants to “make a deal for him”.
So his shift to his “observation” this week about a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodimir Zelenski. Again, everything has to do with personal chemistry. His view is that Putin is disgusted to meet his Ukrainian counterpart because “he does not like him”, adding: “They do not like each other, truly.” Last week, Trump talked about them as if they were incompatible liquids, oil and vinegar.
Putin Zelenski relationships
Undoubtedly, the two men do not like it. Zelenski has every right to hate Putin, the imperial Tsar who is responsible for an invasion of his country that included war crimes and resulted in tens of thousands of Ukrainian fighters and civilians killed or injured, as well as about 20,000 children abducting Russia.
Probably Putin is not thrilled with Zelenski. After all, he is the annoying leader of a country that refuses to succumb, has defied the great imperial Russia and its spirit of resistance remains unstoppable. But this is not the reason Putin is not ready to meet Zelenski.
First, a meeting with Ukrainian would give a political legitimacy to Zelenski, while the Kremlin has long claimed that it has no one – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed it in a recent interview with NBC Meet the Press, implying that Putin could not say to him.
The interests of Moscow
But there is another reason. The accumulation of obstacles for this meeting is part of the Kremlin’s strategy to extend the situation with Trump, while at the same time avoiding – or at least hoping to reduce – his anger and possibly push him to implement the threat of “serious consequences” unless Russia is serious.
Trump has not made it clear what these consequences would be – “I don’t need to say,” he responded contemptuously at a press conference on August 13. Most likely, if he ever intended to do something, the consequences would include secondary sanctions in countries trading with Russia in an attempt to drown in the markets of Russian mineral fuels. This would not knelt Russia – the effectiveness of sanctions is generally overestimated – but it would be extremely annoying, with Russia’s economy heading for recession and already overcoming the budget deficit target for the year.
Unless there is something that Putin could present as a victory, the continuation of the war in Ukraine is useful for the Russian president. The sudden end of the conflict could endanger its status, as a rapid transition outside a war economy would increase the risk of dangerous internal socio -political conflicts. And, according to a sociologist and researcher at the New Eurasian Strategies Center, Ella Pajiah, this would trigger “harsh and violent competition for limited stocks at every level of society.” War is also useful to justify political oppression – patriotism can be a useful tool.
The prolongation of the conflict also has the advantage of further burdening over -indebted European states and is in danger of burning an already fragile transatlantic alliance. A weakened, detached and divided West also serves the purposes of Putin’s ally, Xi Jing, as he examines how and when to swallow Taiwan.
And with the serious lack of human resources of Ukraine, there is always the possibility of a burglary on the front that Ukraine cannot be overthrown. In short, Putin can gain more by continuing – more land, western security guarantees so diluted that they are useless, and a restriction on the size of the post -war Ukrainian army. This would conveniently put the setting for a later repetition of Russian hostilities in time that Moscow will choose. As the former Trump adviser to Russia argued, Fiona Hill, the Russian leader “wants a castrated Ukraine, not one who can withstand military pressure. Everyone sees this except Trump. “
And how can one better keep Trump aside without triggering his anger while holding him on his side? You guessed it: involve Rubio and Whitkov in details and endless complications – Talk about the “roots” of war, load upheavals and deviations, and drive American interlocutors to burrows in a long -awaited exercise.
All this while presenting Zelenski and Kiev as responsible for failing any progress towards ending the war. This is exactly what Lavrov did in an interview with Meet the Press – showing Zelenski with his finger and betting that the accusation will stick to Trump, a man impatient with the details.
Remember that it was Lavrov who shortly after the invasion announced on Russian television the “to the slanderers of Russia” by Pushkin, a poet of a beloved in Russian nationalists, who wrote about how the conflict between Slavic nations was a family affair and no one else.