Paul Goble
Staunton,
July 11 – However much Donald Trump may want to recognize Crimea as part of
Russia to break with past American policies and do some “big deal” with
Vladimir Putin, Sergey Shelin says, the American leader won’t be able to do so
at Helsinki because that action is not within his competence, has not been
prepared by the two sides, and is not in his interest.
The
Rosbalt commentator says that the Helsinki summit will be a friendly one
because both leaders want and need that and because of their “obvious mutual
sympathy.” Only some unexpected bad news from elsewhere could change that. But
there are unlikely to be any real breakthroughs (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2018/07/11/1716380.html).
All past summits
between Washington and Moscow leaders, Shelin continues, have led to major
breakthroughs only when these were carefully prepared in advance at a lower
level. Some might suggest that such a precedent won’t hold for Trump because he
likes to act independently; but fallout from his supposedly “breakthrough”
summit with Kim Jong-un suggests otherwise.
Trump celebrated his meeting with the
North Korean leader as having produced an agreement to “de-nuclearize” the
Korean peninsula, only to find that his understanding of that term and Pyongyang’s
remain far apart, as US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s failed visit to North
Korea demonstrated.
The same thing is likely to be true
at Helsinki. Trump may make concessions and Putin may show flexibility in their
conversations; but the results of the meeting beyond those having to do with
public relations – which both leaders care about – “can only be those actions
to which both sides are in advance and internally prepared.”
That is all the more so, Shelin
continues, because of the difference in experience between the two: “Putin is
not a new leader,” and thus cannot move as far in any direction from settled
policy as he could earlier. Trump is relatively inexperienced and potentially
could, but he too has far less freedom of action than he thinks because of the
nature of the situaiton.
That is true on all the issues the Trump-Putin
meeting will take up. First, Crimea. “It is excluded” that the US will
recognize Crimea as Russian “even if Trump says that he agrees with this. This simply
isn’t in his competence.” The US has a position, and the Europeans are involved
as well, and sanctions were introduced not over Crimea but over the Donbass.
Second, a lifting of sanctions of
their greater part in exchange for a Russian withdrawal from the Donbass. “This is possible but not very probable.” Moscow isn’t ready to do that: it is living
with sanctions; and it has repeatedly denied it is involved in the
Donbass. Any move beyond calling for an
observance of the Minsk agreements is thus unlikely.
Third, “Russian assistance to the anti-Iran
coalition.” This is simply “excluded,” Shelin says. Moscow continues to have an
implicit cooperation with Iran against the US in order that Russia become the
hegemon in various portions of Syria, and no meeting at Helsinki is going to
change that.
Fourth, an increase in Russian oil exports.
This is already happening without any agreement. Putin may announce it as if it
were a concession; but Moscow has no interest in the lower oil prices that such
a move would involve if it were large enough to make a real difference to world
prices.
And fifth, other peripheral issues,
like from example an accord on Central Asia.
That is possible but unlikely because “our system unlike even the early
Brezhnevite one does not feel a need for a breakthrough in the international arena”
although it just like its predecessor requires “ritual actions which raise the prestige
of the leader.”
There is thus little willingness or
ability to make a fundamental breakthrough at least in public, although there
may be some private understandings. But as far as the former are concerned,
Shelin concludes, he will call the Helsinki meeting a success if it leads to
something as minor as an agreement for the exchange of prisoners between Russia
and Ukraine.
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