40 minutes with Trump

The visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Washington, apparently, did not achieve the ultimate goal - to agree on a meeting between the leaders of Russia and the United States even before the July G20 summit in Hamburg

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Washington, where he had not been since 2013, almost a month after his American counterpart Rex Tillerson paid a visit to Moscow. The main intrigue of the US Secretary of State's April trip, and even before it began, was one question: will President Putin accept him for a conversation or not. If he accepts, the commentators reasoned, then, despite the earlier American missile attack on the Assad airbase, Russia and the United States still have a chance to establish a dialogue, if he doesn’t accept, then the insult “tomahawks” was inflicted on the Kremlin, which had barely recovered from trampomania, almost fatal, and a new Cold War has every chance of becoming a delayed hot one.

Cold shower

In April, Putin received Tillerson (together with Lavrov). The conversation went on for over two hours. As a result, it became clear: the parties remained on their own - both on Syria (Moscow would be better off to stop betting on Bashar al-Assad, who kills his fellow citizens with chemical weapons), and on Ukraine (the position of the current US administration is the same as that of the previous one: peace in Ukraine not possible without the implementation of the Minsk agreements). But something else became clear: the escalation of political tension between the Russian Federation and the United States after the tomahawk attack into an open conflict with unpredictable consequences was avoided, although the decisiveness with which Trump gave the command to launch a missile attack on the Assad airbase, of course, became cold for Moscow. shower. And, it seems, she left Putin no choice but to continue trying to negotiate with the new team in the Washington White House - both on Syria and on Ukraine. Not forgetting something equally important: the format and date of the first Putin-Trump meeting, which the Kremlin considered and continues to consider a key starting point for building relations with the current US administration. The Kremlin has repeatedly hinted at the desirability of such a meeting to take place as soon as possible and would be nice to have some kind of symbolic frame for heightening the effect. From this point of view, the meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg in July will not have the desired effect.

The emanations of Moscow were among the first to catch the Slovenian President Borut Pahor, who, during his February visit to Moscow, proposed to hold the first Putin-Trump meeting in Slovenia, where the current wife of the 45th US President is from and in whose capital, Ljubljana, 16 years ago, George W. Bush for the first time, as we remember, he looked into Putin's eyes and saw something there. However, Finnish President Niiniste, with whom the Russian President has developed a trusting relationship, has taken up the same topic more than once: they say, we are ready to organize such a meeting at any moment, just let me know. Iceland also announced its readiness to become the host country of the first meeting between Putin and Trap.

Ideal Format

Preparations for Lavrov's overseas visit began immediately after Tillerson left Moscow under Putin's promise to continue to maintain contact with Washington on Syria, in order to avoid unforeseen situations in the theater of operations. The decision to send Lavrov to talks in Washington received an additional impetus after Putin called Trump on May 2 and explained to him the general meaning of the trilateral Russian-Turkish-Iranian project to create de-escalation zones in Syria. Trump was interested in the idea - he immediately made a public statement that the United States would continue to interact with Russia in Syria. Almost simultaneously with this, it became known that the military, represented by two high-ranking generals, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, also agreed to continue contacts on Syria.

Another noteworthy detail: in early May, Trump's foreign travel program was made public, and it turned out that on the 24th, before Trump arrived in Brussels for the NATO summit, he would be received in the Vatican by the Pope. Analysts immediately started talking about the fact that Lavrov, they say, was going to Washington to arrange a meeting between Putin and Trump. This assumption can be interpreted in only one way: it would be desirable for Moscow that Trump, during the European tour, would find an opportunity to meet with Putin, and if the Vatican were the venue for such a meeting, and Pope Francis was the host, then this would be perfect.

Fleeting reception

Lavrov's meeting with Trump—only 40 minutes—was incomparably shorter than Putin's meeting with Tillerson. In diplomacy, 40 minutes is almost nothing, well, except for a long exchange of welcoming remarks. That is, in its purest form, the protocol and a minimum of content. The transience of Lavrov's reception at the White House means that either the topic of the meeting between the two leaders was not touched upon at all, or Trump immediately and in a form that did not imply the possibility of further discussion made it clear to Lavrov that this was not a priority for him, or, on the contrary, he immediately confirmed Lavrov's readiness to meet with Putin even before the G20 summit, instructing Tillerson to begin preparations for such a meeting on the American side. However, the latter scenario, given the ongoing Senate hearings on Russian interference in the American elections and Trump's unwillingness to give his opponents any food for accusations that he is a “protege of Moscow,” is the least likely. In other words, we shook hands, "checked our watches" and parted - thanks for visiting, Mr. Lavrov.

What's next? Trump called the meeting with Lavrov "very, very good." But Trump, judging by the pathos of his Twitter, is always for all the good against all the bad. But Moscow did not give any intelligible commentary on the substance of Lavrov's talks in Washington. Meanwhile, in international politics, silence is not always a sign of agreement (in this case with Trump). Very often this is a sign of disagreement and disappointment.

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