A summit that gives cold sweats to the Ukrainians. Donald Trump is preparing to meet this Friday, August 15 in Alaska, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, with whom he has had tumultuous relations since his return to the White House.
This Wednesday, European leaders went to the US president by videoconference, to try to convince him to defend the interests of Ukraine during his tête-à-tête with the Russian president. They fear that the meeting does not lead to an unfavorable result for Ukraine, when the Russian army is progressing in the east of the country and, while Washington mentions an “exchange of territories.”
If Europeans care so much, it is also due to the fact that the format of a closed pure meeting among Russian and American presidents do not necessarily encourage optimism. The last summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki in 2018, had revealed a disturbing collusion between the two men.
Helsinki, Trump-Poutin’s only summit
The two heads of state met at six times, mainly outside the international meetings and each time during the first mandate of the US president. However, Helsinki’s meeting in 2018 is the date of the only bilateral summit that has been organized between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
At that time, the two men showed their willingness to write a new chapter of relations between Washington and Moscow. Case Snowden, War in Syria, Annexation of Crimea … There are many litigation after eight years of Obama Presidency. But in Helsinki, it is especially Russian interference that crystallizes tensions.
In fact, Russia is accused of American intelligence (the FBI, the CIA and the NSA gathered) of having ingested in the American elections of 2016 to promote the election of Donald Trump, in particular when hacking the computers of the Democratic Party and the campaign director of his rival Hillary Clinton.
The Republican is personally attacked by an investigation carried out by the special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating the nature of the links between the Donald Trump and Russia campaign team.
“Shameful performance”
At the end of a two-hour Tête-à-Tête with the Russian president, Donald Trump rejects the disorders in front of the press the conclusions provided by their own intelligence services on Moscow’s interference, preferring to believe the version of his interlocutor.
“I have President Putin, who has just said that it was not Russia. I would say this: I don’t see why they would be (…) President Putin’s denials were very strong and very powerful,” he said, exciting stupor between journalists and his own advisors.
Present at the Hearing, former American Security Council Fiona Hill returned to this scene in a documentary broadcast on the British Channel Channel 4.
“I was asked: ‘How can I stop this? I could simulate a heart attack.’ I started looking at the room: ‘Can I activate the fire alarm?” Says the former advisor, evoking a “humiliation show.”
The statements of the Republican billionaire cause a uproar in the American political class, even in the presidential field. Republican senator John McCain compares Donald Trump’s press conference with “one of the most shameful actions of an US president.”
Under pressure, Donald Trump is forced to return to his words. Back in the United States, it begs the slip. “In a very important prayer of my speech, I used the verb” it would be “instead of” not being. “The prayer should have been:” I do not see why Russia would not be what he has ingested in the elections … “, he says, reading his files.
If a collusion was not established between the Trump and Moscow campaign, the Russian interference in the 2016 elections will be confirmed in 2019 by Robert Mueller’s investigation in 2019, then in 2020 by the intelligence committee of the United States Senate, then chaired by the way Marco Rubio, current Secretary of State for Donald Trump.
Seven years after the Helskinki incident, the situation changed between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. If the US president maintains a form of respect for the Kremlin teacher, he has bothered several times of his willingness to continue the invasion of Ukraine.
“Disappointed” by his Russian counterpart, to date he has taken any of the sanctions he had threatened. However, the meeting between the two men intervenes on the date on which the ultimatum was launched in the Kremlin expires to stop his war. This Wednesday, Donald Trump threatened Russia with “very serious consequences” if the conflict does not end.
Source: BFM TV
