{"id":342883,"date":"2025-08-14T03:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T03:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/342883\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T03:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T03:55:11","slug":"europe-lurches-between-hope-and-fear-as-trump-meets-putin-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/342883\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe lurches between hope and fear as Trump meets Putin \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rather, this is about Ukraine agreeing to cede land for something that hasn\u2019t at all been made clear. NATO membership? The recognition of Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty and its right to conduct foreign and defense policy in any way Kyiv sees fit, including receiving arms supplies from the West? Unlikely. \u201cPutin is not fighting merely for land but for what he considers a \u2018friendly\u2019 Ukraine, as he defines it,\u201d noted Russian political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya.<\/p>\n

Indeed, few seasoned observers of the Kremlin believe Putin is serious about giving up his ultimate goal of subjugating Ukraine \u2014 a nation he doesn\u2019t believe should exist. According to longtime Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky\u2019s New Eurasian Strategies Center, for example, \u201cwhile the Kremlin is interested in sanctions relief, it sees no need to make substantial concessions<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMoscow is seeking to create the impression of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, as urged by Donald Trump, in order to sustain his interest in the negotiations. The Kremlin believes that Trump is politically vulnerable and that his ability to influence the course of the war is limited. It sees him caught between a faction in Congress that insists on continued support for Ukraine and containment of Russia as a matter of national security, and his own electoral base, which demands a rapid end to \u2018unnecessary foreign entanglements,\u2019\u201d the think tank argued.<\/p>\n

\"\"With Volodymyr Zelenskyy resisting a land deal, Donald Trump resorted to some of the harsh language he was using earlier this year, saying he \u201cvery severely\u201d disagreed with Zelenskyy\u2019s handling of the war and that \u201cit never should have happened\u201d in the first place. | Filip Singer\/EPA<\/p>\n

Plus, giving the impression of being serious about a ceasefire or settlement also makes Kyiv look like the obdurate one, the one saying no \u2014 and that\u2019s a risky place to be.<\/p>\n

With Zelenskyy resisting a land deal \u2014 which he has to do in order to avoid the wrath of his country, where a recent poll suggests only around a third of Ukrainians are prepared to exchange land for peace \u2014 this week Trump resorted to some of the harsh language he was using earlier this year, saying he \u201cvery severely\u201d disagreed with Zelenskyy\u2019s handling of the war and that \u201cit never should have happened\u201d in the first place. <\/p>\n

The U.S. president has, however, balanced that with a warning: On Wednesday, he said Putin will face severe consequences if he fails to agree to a ceasefire during the Alaska summit \u2014 a remark that\u2019s somewhat steadied nervous European allies. But will that indeed be the case if the Russian leader fails to do so?<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy had painstakingly maneuvered himself out of Trump\u2019s doghouse after his ugly spat in February. The risk now is getting dumped back in it \u2014 and Putin will be doing everything he can to try to make that happen, while avoiding Trump\u2019s ire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rather, this is about Ukraine agreeing to cede land for something that hasn\u2019t at all been made clear.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[12915,768,5293,32,2000,6562,299,5187,660,2597,809,332,7070,6717,1771,657,49,30878,333,2601,771,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-342883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-aid-and-development","9":"tag-borders","10":"tag-diplomacy","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-eu27","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-european","16":"tag-kremlin","17":"tag-military","18":"tag-negotiations","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-steve-witkoff","21":"tag-transatlantic-relations","22":"tag-u-s-foreign-policy","23":"tag-ukraine","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unpacked","26":"tag-vladimir-putin","27":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","28":"tag-war","29":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115025105683034954","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}