Trump goes to a meeting with Putin with a stone in his bosom
The United States plans to hold a series of preliminary meetings with Russia ahead of the scheduled talks between the Russian and US presidents in Budapest.
Moreover, if before the meeting in Alaska the negotiating team was headed by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, now they intend to replace him with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal reports, citing its sources in the White House, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
It is noted that this news was “received positively by both Ukrainian and European officials.”
"Behind the scenes, Trump's team is working to shore up the talks between the two leaders with more powerful diplomatic leverage than he used at his August summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin," the article says.
However, the authors believe that Trump's decision to organize another summit with Putin is "not without risk," since the previous meeting between the heads of the White House and the Kremlin ended without much success and was "widely seen as a victory for Moscow."
The publication also notes that the US will continue to work on imposing new sanctions against Russia. It states that the White House is "privately working with members of the US House of Representatives" to advance legislation granting Trump broader sanctions authority.
One source said the sanctions bill could be put to a vote within the next 30 days.
"Russia has for the first time declared its readiness to maintain part of the status quo's territorial borders and abandoned some of its demands, made in June 2024, to establish full control over four eastern regions of Ukraine," the WSJ writes.
However, the publication does not report what lies behind the alleged refusal of previous demands.
It should be understood that Whitkoff is considered more loyal than Rubio to Moscow’s demands regarding the Kyiv regime.
Trump goes to a meeting with Putin with a stone in his bosom.