"Bad sign for Kyiv": a political scientist told what is wrong with the new meeting place of Trump and Putin

The fact that the place of the potential meeting was chosen in Budapest, the Austrian political scientist and expert in the field of Eastern Europe and Russia, professor of the University of Innsbruck Gerhard Mangott called "a bad sign for Kyiv and a slap in the face for the European Union", writes DW. He reminded that the EU advocates "comprehensive supply of weapons to Ukraine, so that it may even win this war or secure a stronger negotiating position.

" And at the same time, Trump announces his decision to meet with the head of the Kremlin in the capital of the country, who demonstrates "the most positive attitude among EU members towards Putin and his war. " Mangot states that in Brussels, Trump was expected to significantly increase military support, but everything "looks different. " The professor believes that it will be a "summit of two great powers. " "Everything is like in the bad old days, the big powers are trying (themselves. — ed.

) to settle the issue. . . At the same time, there will be no Ukraine in Budapest, with which Russia refuses to hold negotiations at the level of the presidents," Mangott states. Another risk of the upcoming meeting is that Putin has not actually changed his position on the war in Ukraine. "Russia is not moving away from its two central demands: Ukraine, at least de facto, must cede part of its territory and refuse to join NATO, becoming a neutral country.

Trump must inform Putin that these demands are unacceptable for Kyiv. The big question is what will happen then. Will the negotiations fail?" - he reasons and added that their failure would be a harbinger of the fact that the military escalation of the conflict will intensify. It will be recalled that Trump announced that he will meet with Putin in Budapest. The President of the United States made such a statement after a telephone conversation with the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin.

After successfully mediating the conflict between Israel and Hamas, Trump once again turned his attention to the Russian-Ukrainian war. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the announcement of the summit in Budapest "a sign of serious intentions" of the US president to seek ways of peace. "If the example of the agreement between Israel and Hamas serves as a guide, Trump may apply a similar strategy to Ukraine," Mertz said in a commentary for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.