Washington – A week after President Donald Trump’s summit with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin does not seem in a hurry to rely on the progress which, according to Trump, have been made in his attempt to end the war in Ukraine.
Any momentum of their meeting of almost three hours in Anchorage, Alaska, seems to have slowed down, although administration officials say they do not give up a solution and will continue to work to negotiate an elusive peace agreement.
On Friday, the best diplomat in Russia said in an interview with NBC News that Putin was ready to meet the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, although the agenda is “not at all ready”.
“President Putin clearly said that he was ready to meet, provided that this meeting has a program, the presidential agenda,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the moderator of “Met the Press”, Kristen Welker, in an exclusive interview.
This declaration seemed to be in contradiction with Trump’s assertion on Monday that he had spoken to Putin by phone and had started to organize a meeting between the Russian chief and Zelenskyy. Once this meeting is, he said that he would sit with the two men looking for an agreement.
Addressing journalists on Friday afternoon in the Oval Office, Trump looked more temporarily from the next steps to arrest a war that started with the invasion of Russia in 2022 and has since made around 1.5 million victims on both sides.
“We will see what’s going on,” said Trump, who also held a photo of himself and Putin that the Russian chief had sent him after the summit. “I think that in the next two weeks, we will find out in which direction it will go. And I better be very happy. ”
During this period of two weeks, he said: “I will make a decision on what we are doing, and it will be, it will be a very important decision, and it is whether or not they are massive sanctions or massive prices, or both. Or we do nothing and say, “It’s your fight. “”.
(“Two weeks” is a deadline that Trump often invokes with regard to a certain number of political objectives, dating from his first mandate.)
Stoping a conflict rooted in ancient grievances on earth and national identity is not a small task. The dead end between fighters focuses on security guarantees for Ukraine, as well as the fate of Ukrainian territory that Russia has tried to grasp by force.
Other delays could work to the advantage of Putin, allowing her troops to cement the gains made on the battlefield.
A western official said Lavrov’s remarks have frustrated the White House because they suggest that Russia could go back to the commitments Trump believes he has extracted Putin.
“The Russians are just rowing day by day,” said the manager. “So it seems that they are played, which is frustrating for any president, but in particular for someone from the nature of President Trump.”
However, officials of the Trump administration said they did not give up on the prospect of a peace agreement.
“No one is ready to throw in the towel,” said a national security official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “One of the things on which the president was very clear is that if there is one way to end this diplomatically in the short term, then he wants to grasp it. There is no military solution to the conflict. The question is whether you have a diplomatic solution now or if it takes the next six or 18 months to reach this point of view.”
Trump has raised the hope that a breakthrough could be in sight with his face -to -face meeting with Putin, followed by his assiet three days later at the White House with Zelenskyy and European leaders.
After this series of cross-country diplomacies, the path to a truce is still so troubled. In an article on social networks Thursday, Trump wrote that because Ukraine largely defends his lawn, he cannot overcome Russia. An official of the White House, speaking under the cover of anonymity, said that the post was aimed at reporting that Ukraine will have to accept a largely part of Russia’s conditions.
Negotiations take place in the context of the White House public candidacy to land the Nobel Peace Prize. An unpopular figure in Europe, Trump would be confronted with difficult chances even if he meditates the end of the war which is just for Ukraine.
Christian Tybring-Gjedde is a member of the Norwegian Parliament who appointed Trump for the Nobel Prize during his first mandate.
“If he wants to have the attention of the Nobel Committee, he must create a peace that is based on the needs of Ukraine,” said Tybring-Gjedde in an interview on Friday. “Ukraine has been invaded. He was raped. They are now fighting for survival as a nation. ”
“You have to understand who the attacker is,” he added.
After raising the challenges, officials of the Trump administration and the external allies now offer a message that the conflict may not be so important for the Americans every day after all.
Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican who presented a resolution of the Senate calling Trump to win the Nobel Prize, said in a forum on Wednesday in Cleveland: “Look, war is not American war. If war continues, if war ends, it does not change the lives of the Americans.”
In an appearance on Sunday on “Meet The Press”, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that “if tomorrow war continues, life in America will not be fundamentally modified”.
Trump sounded a more disastrous note at a tense meeting with Zelenskyy in the oval office in February, warning that the conflict could transform in the Second World War if it is not ended.
A White House official told NBC News this week: “President Trump and his national security team continue to get involved with Russian and Ukrainian officials towards a bilateral meeting to stop the murder and end the war. As many world leaders have declared it, this war would never have occurred if President Trump was in office. It is not in the national interest of negotiating these questions more publicly. ”
For its part, Rubio coordinates an effort among the American allies to protect Ukraine from future Russian attacks once the war is over. A security guarantee is crucial for Zelenskyy, who said he wanted a concrete plan in just over a week.
Rubio led a discussion on Thursday with the national security advisers of Great Britain, Finland, Germany, France and Italy, as well as diplomats from the European Union and NATO, confirmed an American official.
A source familiar with Reunion said that progress is continuing, adding that the Ukrainian security plan must be in place before any potential summit between Ukrainian and Russian leaders.
Regarding a security guarantee for Ukraine, there is a divergence between what Russia wants and what the West is ready to accept.
Lavrov declared earlier this week that Russia categorically rejects “all the scenarios that envisaged the appearance of military contingents from NATO countries in Ukraine, which would be heavy with an uncontrollable climbing of the conflict and unpredictable consequences.”
However, the European Union ambassador to the United States, Jovita Nelipšienė, told journalists on Friday: “Russia cannot have the veto for the membership of the EU or NATO, and decisions on the territories are solidly the decisions of Ukraine and international borders must not be modified by force.”
If the negotiations remove, this could trigger a movement in the congress to slap the secondary sanctions against countries which buy Russian energy or do business with the Putin regime.
Last month, in a rare bilithis, the republican senator Lindsey Graham de Caroline du Sud and the Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut introduced a resolution which would punish the countries “which continue to finance the barbaric war of Putin in Ukraine”.
Blumenthal, in an interview, said the West lost patience. The Trump summit meeting with Putin has not produced a cease-fire-a result that serves Putin’s interests, he said.
“It is as clear that the day that Vladimir Putin wants a continuous war because he thinks he wins,” said Blumenthal, a member of the Armed Services Committee. “The more it goes for a long time, the better for him. His strategy was clear from the start of this war: survive the inhabitants of Ukraine and their supporters, sacrifice the necessary Russian blood and conquer Ukraine. And if there is a break, be ready to invade. “
