In a few hours, Donald Trump’s summit meeting with Vladimir Putin will wash away years of relegation and put the Moscow despot back on the world stage, writes Defence and Security Editor Chris Hughes
Within hours on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin will go from being a despised, wanted war crimes suspect and international pariah, to being catapulted back on the world stage. Russians, worn down by economic woes, the death and injury of more than a million male relatives and growing resentment, will see Putin re-legitimised, welcomed by the world leader.
China, Iran and North Korea, allies to varying degrees of Moscow, will also see Putin become a player again after years in exile from the world stage. He has massively played Trump. In order of importance to Putin it is Russians first, then China, North Korea and Iran. Trump has already made so many concessions to Vladimir Putin that this meeting has already become an exercise in humiliation.
Putin has wrested so much from Trump over Ukraine that it is hard to predict the US leader emerging with any tangible move towards peace. Putin will feel he has to continue stringing Trump along. It comes after Putin has warned of nuclear war after unleashing another night of hell on Ukraine
The meeting was supposed to be a result of Putin agreeing to meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky – of course that was never going to happen. Putin has run rings around Trump. He is so completely untrustworthy that little can be gained from the meeting except to stall the inevitable – strict US secondary sanctions on Russia.
The biggest problem for Putin is that he is deluded in believing he’s winning in Ukraine and by definition that means he does not know it. Meanwhile the Kremlin chief has ordered a major push in east Ukraine, breaking through Ukraine’s defences and achieving ground.
They have done this kind of maneuver before and it will likely backfire as Ukraine forces flank them and exact huge casualties – if they can maintain the manpower. Russian forces keep blundering forward, circling around Ukrainian defences, only to be caught in a trap.Russia’s unmoving air defences are proving to be ineffective and Ukraine is every week hitting its military infrastructure and supply chain.
Oil refineries, multi-million pound long-range bombers, ammunition caches- all of these have been hit in Crimea and mainland Russia. Putin’s strategically useless targeting and vile targeting of civilian communities is a bullyboy tactic that can only make gains by lowering morale if you under-estimate Ukraine’s spirit.
It is ironic that Putin will probably believe this is not the time to stop his military push as he believes his troops are having successes. But if he could really see the chess moves so far ahead as he is reportedly able he would know that a delay, if Ukraine’s military manpower can withstand the pressure, is to Kyiv’s advantage. With a tanking economy and a military so desperately in need he has to take on North Korean reinforcements, Russia cannot keep this up forever.
Nor can it keep suffering the kind of strategic loss of men, machinery, power and supplies without cracks starting to show back home. And the quality of Putin’s troops is also suffering since they now know they are signing up for what is possibly a one-way ticket to the frontline.
With such an appallingly abused, badly-trained military many of the Russian attacks are made with the threat of execution behind them if they refuse. Some Russian women are, it is said, flocking to marry soldiers possibly because they are likely to die and they will get the money. This is a sordid equation if true and one that comes from the top – where only force, falseness and manipulation is of value.
This depraved war in Ukraine is likely to grind on but if Ukraine can hold the line something has to give in Russia-and that will happen very quickly. Or the war can trundle on with no end, where both sides draw up lines, heavily militarise the front and simply stop fighting except for the odd flare-up.
That is what happened between the two Koreas where the war of the 1950’s has never stopped but there are few exchanges now. And that is another possibility, unless Trump hurries up and the penny drops when he realises Putin is stringing him along and disrespecting him. Then Trump, taking it personally, will hopefully come up with the very hard-hitting sanctions he should have pushed the button on months ago.