‘Constructive’? Look again at the smoke and mirrors of the Trump-Putin summit

We read a little about President Trump “Hot Microphone” ReviewDuring a meeting with European leaders on Russia’s war against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin wants to make a crazy deal as it seems to me ”.

Pundits discussed whether this was a shame for Trump; They wondered why French President Emmanuel whispered to Macron, as if Trump’s oral goush was something new. Three days later, the titles were full of the word “agreement için for a while that Trump said that Putin would not want to“ make an agreement ”. And of course, there is no agreement.

The meeting in Alaska said that the scope of the press was many “constructive” interviews. In his speeches with Trump, Putin spoke about “neighboring” interviews and “mutually respected constructive atmosphere”. Although there were no details about what they might have, there were reports about the various things discussed about the various things discussed.

First, I have dealt with more than a few superpower summits for the Associated Press and then for the New York Times. Although this was more than 30 years ago, the smoke and mirrors produced with such meetings have not changed nonsense. Oral gas is abundant and the facts are almost absent. Trump’s comments were as much as everything he said about the subject, which is almost nothing. And nevertheless, in the past, they were reported as if they had the same meaning as the words of other presidents, and they were infinitely separated.

In January 1987, I had a feeling of Deja Vu from a five -day trip to Afghanistan. The Kremlin finally agreed to allow a group of Western journalists to visit Kabul and Jalalabad. The visit was invoiced as an Afghan government tour he believed in – especially the Afghan government of the Afghan government.

Although we could see artillery fire on the hills at night, we didn’t see a fight. Some “specialties” reported that we were fired when binding the service reporters called the Great Media at that time. We weren’t.

Mostly, we shopped for carpets and drank cold heinekens, which was not present in Moscow but was stocked in a mysterious way at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. We led to various events of peace and unity between the Afghan and Russian peoples, and we visited the major Soviet military camps just outside Kabul (allegedly alleged to be a diplomat from the embassy, ​​but we experienced this person from the central intelligence agency).

On January 19, Bolshevik was taken to a news conference of Afghan leader Mohammad Najib, whose name was Najibullah to make it look less religious for his friends, (each correspondent in a mini government car). NAJİB said that Afghanistan and the Soviet Union agreed that “a timeline for the withdrawal of Soviet occupation forces in principle”.

At this point, Reuters reporter, who was quite new for Moscow, returned from the room to our bolt and returned to our hotel, where we all had a telex machine to send our stories back to Moscow. He opened a bulletin on the announcement. When the rest came back comfortably, we were greeted with messages that wanted to know a great deal from our home offices to end the war in Afghanistan.

We have written our stories about a press conference as usual. Each of us added a message to explain why the Reuters report was just wrong. It was common to talk about the Soviet withdrawal and it was always wrong. The idea that the puppet government in Kabul has something to say about it or is a party to serious debates on ending the war is absurd. The most concise interpretation came from the Agency France-Presse correspondent, who told his editors that he had a Reuters story.roller. “The Soviet army did not follow its own program until February 1989 after more than two years.

Most of the last scope about Russia and Ukraine reminds me of Afghan News Flash in 1987. The Kremlin was never, then it wasn’t, and now he’s not interested in negotiation or reconciliation. Under Soviet communism and under Putin, diplomacy is a zero -sum game, whose only goal is to restore its Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe. And still, for some reason, the American media and the country’s diplomats seem as much unaware today. After the summit, they breathed breathlessly that there was no peace agreement from the summit, but they all knew that there was no agreement on the table and that there would never be one.

But of course, Putin wants a “agreement” in Ukraine. The agreement he wanted for violating international law (not the first time) and because he occupied Ukraine on 24 February 2022. He wants to redraw the borders of Ukraine to give more zones to give more zones than he had captured before, and he wants to be as the old Soviet of the old Soviet, from Ukraine’s NATO and Moscow’s military presidency. While the country dare to claim that it may be interested in NATO membership. The latest nonsense was to demand Russia to be part of the post -war security arrangements. NATO wants its allies to stop acting as a war criminal for him, and to be seen as an equal actor on the international stage with NATO and the United States.

Starting from the ground, there is plenty of Trump in Alaska. Trump invited Putin to the United States during the travel bans to Russia and Russia to the United States, and immediately gave the Russian dictator a major PR victor. He also put him in the only NATO country he wanted against crime against humanity.

As for the peace talks, check the headlines of Ukraine before, after and after the Alaska summit: the Russians accelerated their killing and destruction in Ukraine with new savagery and caught as much land in Eastern Ukraine. Each inch square of this land – and the Kremlin has not yet occupied – will be part of any “agreement ği that Putin will accept. Trump himself speaks about the “black swaps ((as it has been since the beginning of the war) – a ridiculous idea when you think that the land of Ukraine is the dominant region of the land and that the Russians’s grip was stolen.

Perhaps the leading authority of the dictatorship, the bright M. Gessen, has published an article in the New York review, “Autocracy: survival rules“Shortly after the 2016 elections.” Rule #2: Do not be taken by small normality symptoms ”.

A US president and a Russian leader sits to talk and a Russian leader who appears with blush about progress seems normal enough, perhaps encouraging when American-Russian relations are at a low level. Remember only from these two men, the comments don’t mean anything – or worse, he wonders what Trump gave to Putin with his black swaps speech.

Andrew Rosenthal, a former correspondent, editor and columnist, was the Chief of Moscow Office for Associated Press and Washington Editor, and then the editor for the New York Times.