There is a big question of how we have got to the point where Putin and Trump have committed themselves to another summit in Budapest.

By Alexander Mercouris.

The first thing to say is that there is none of the excitement - or concern - we saw ahead of the summit in Alaska. The European media, which was in a frenzy before the Alaska summit, is playing this summit down.

The second is that the Russians seem to be much more skeptical. Not only have Putin and Lavrov been challenged by the Russian media in recent press conferences and interviews, but it seems to me that Ushakov in his briefing seemed more doubtful than before. He spoke of the call between Putin and Trump as merely being ‘quite useful’, and made no comment about warmth or ‘sincerity’ between the leaders.

It is clear that there is a tension we have not seen before.

This has caused me to read through all the various comments made since Alaska by Putin and Lavrov, going back all the way to the press conference that Putin and Trump held after the summit and extending to Ushakov’s briefing of the recent telephone call between Trump and Putin.

I have also been looking at the various statements the Europeans have been making since the summit in Alaska was announced.

Here is what I think has happened.

(1) the Russians came away from Alaska believing that they had agreed in principle an outline settlement agreement of the conflict in Ukraine with Trump. Almost certainly this took the form of something very close to Istanbul Plus, but it is possible that the Russians agreed to a ceasefire along the current lines in Zaporozhye and Kherson regions provided the Ukrainians withdrew from Donbass. In all other respects the settlement outline would have been identical or very close to Istanbul Plus and said specifically no NATO, but did allow Ukraine to join the EU.

(2) Trump told Putin that he would consult with officials in Washington, the Ukrainians and the Europeans, and would revert back;

(3) Trump has never reverted back. Instead we have had loose talk from him about ‘security guarantees’, ‘European reassurance forces’, more sanctions on Russia, pressure on India to stop buying Russian oil, ‘Ukraine winning the war’, Tomahawks, etc. All this combined with public statements insulting Putin and Russia.

The Russians are furious about (3) and are treating it as a breach of faith. To be clear, what has incensed them is that Trump has not reverted back to them about what was discussed in Alaska. If he had come back and said NO that would have been an answer, and the Russians would have worked with it.

They are now clearly saying that deployment of Tomahawks in Ukraine would be the last straw and that if it takes place the whole dialogue is over. The purpose of the recent Putin Trump call from their point of view was for Putin to make this clear to Trump. Some people in Moscow are becoming very angry with Putin himself, and are all but telling him to his face that Trump is taking him for a ride, with a key part of the reason being that Trump has not done what the Russians believed he told them he would do in Alaska, which is revert back on the outline which was discussed.

Obviously the mistake was (2). It ought to be obvious by now that Zelensky does not want peace under any circumstances (his entire survival depends on the continuation of the war) but more seriously neither do the Europeans precisely because they worry that a peace would lead to the US and Russia sorting out their differences and drawing closer to each other. Perhaps Trump doesn’t understand this but all the public talk about the US and Russia doing massive economic deals with each other as soon as peace in Ukraine is achieved, in and of itself is sufficient to make the Europeans, especially the British, want to sabotage the whole process. You got a perfect example of how this sabotage works with the deeply false article the Financial Times published yesterday. https://www.ft.com/content/7af3b49e-c4da-405b-8199-3e12957b78c2

The roadblock to peace is not in Moscow, It is in Kiev, the Europeans capitals, and with people like Kellogg in Washington.

I can understand that Trump feels that he has to manoeuvre and work round these people and must throw them a bone from time to time but he must try to understand that doing this is making him look to the Russians like a weak and unreliable negotiating partner who cannot get the deal closed.

It also means that with the situation on the ground changing every day in the Russians’ favour, and with the US now on increasingly confrontational terms with China, so that the Russians now know that their Chinese flank is fully secure, the incentive for the Russians to stick to whatever outline proposal Putin and Trump discussed with each other in Alaska is shrinking.

Reading Ushakov’s briefing, it is now clear to me that the Russians did not intend that the latest Putin Trump call would result in another summit, much less one in Budapest. Their purpose was to explain to Trump their perspective, which I have discussed above, and specifically the fact that the whole process of dialogue, and the entire relationship between the Russians and the current administration, now hangs by a thread. The Russians were taken by surprise when Trump suggested - probably at Orban’s suggestion - another summit, and did not initially agree. Ushakov’s briefing makes that perfectly clear. However the conversation went on for two and a half hours and is apparently (according to Larry Johnson’s sources in Moscow, which I believe) a follow up to an earlier 40 minute conversation between Trump and Putin which took place on Putin’s birthday. Speaking as a former mediator, when telephone conversations between parties last as long this then it is clear that the parties need to meet, which is what Orban, who is clearly mediating between them, must be telling each of them. The logic of this is inescapable and is why the parties have agreed to meet.

This is my take of the whole business. I am fairly confident that I am getting the Russian side right.

What people in Washington need to understand is that Putin, Russian patriot though he is, is also probably the last Russian leader who axiomatically wants a future for Russia still connected to the West. He is a man born in the 1950s in St Petersburg - Russia’s ‘window on the West’ - who lived through the Cold War when Russians took it for granted that they were Europeans (the Cold War was ultimately a struggle about the future of Europe of which Russia saw itself as a part) and when for Russians the overriding relationship was the one with the US. Future Russian leaders have a totally different life experience and see things very differently. If a Grand Bargain with Russia is going to be done it has been done now with Putin. There is no guarantee that it can be done with anyone else.