“Trump has taken a position symmetrical to Putin’s”: expert says peace must come before meetings
Political strategist Mykhailo Sheitelman said that Trump has taken the same position as Putin, meaning there will be no more pointless meetings — first, a peace agreement on Ukraine, reports Politeka.
He said this in his blog.
“Trump said he was ready to meet with Putin, and everyone was like: ‘Oh, he’s ready to meet with Putin.’ By the way, the Russians were so delighted that the headlines in the Russian press read: ‘Trump says he is ready to meet with Putin.’ But there are some details here. Trump is ready to meet with Putin, but only after a peace deal on Ukraine. In other words, Trump has taken a position symmetrical to Putin’s. What did Putin say? That he is ready to meet with Trump and Zelensky, but only when it comes to the final signing of the agreement. And Trump is saying exactly the same thing,” Mykhailo Sheitelman noted.
The reason, he explained, is that Russian propaganda has been pushing the story that a meeting between Xi Jinping, Putin, and Trump is supposedly planned for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which will be held on November 18 in Shenzhen.
In other words, the expert explained, Trump rejected the idea with this statement because holding such a meeting would amount to acknowledging Russia as a superpower. He noted that Ushakov started the whole story by saying that at the SCO summit, Xi Jinping had mentioned that both Trump and Putin would attend the APEC summit and that a meeting between them was possible. However, Trump rejected the idea until the war is over.
“Does this give us hope for peace? Well, it depends on whom you ask. Although Ukraine’s Foreign Minister did say that there would be some movement on the peace track and that we should closely follow developments, I’m not bringing you any good news on this front. I don’t believe there will be any progress toward peace this fall. I think we really need to prepare for winter. Everything that is making noise outside the window right now will continue to make noise. The only difference would be if we learn to shoot down these drones much faster, earlier, and more effectively,” Mykhailo Sheitelman said.
He noted that this view is also shared by the U.S. ambassador to NATO, who said that Putin’s latest statements give us no reason to expect the war in Ukraine to end soon. There are no grounds for optimism, he said, adding that Russia has become bogged down and could take unpredictable actions against NATO.
And, the expert emphasized, those words came from someone in the Trump administration.