According to CCTV news reports, on October 21 local time, US President Trump said that no decision had been made on the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump also said he still believes there is a chance for a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Earlier in the day, senior White House officials said there were currently no plans to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin. Russian Presidential Press Secretary Peskov said in a briefing on the 21st that Russian and US leaders had not previously determined a specific date for the meeting.
On October 20, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had telephoned with U.S. Secretary of State Rubyoton on the same day to conduct "constructive discussions" around the consensus reached by the two heads of state on the previous telephone talks.
Deputy State Department chief spokesman Piaget also issued a statement on the same day that Rubio and Lavrov's telephone conversation discussed the follow-up to the US and Russian presidents' 16th conversation. the statement said the upcoming talks between the two presidents on the Ukraine issue were "critical" and provided an opportunity for the US and Russia to jointly promote a lasting solution to the conflict in Russia.
On the 16th, Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone conversation with US President Trump. Trump later posted on social media saying that he would hold a face-to-face meeting with Putin in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. According to US media reports, Trump pressured Ukraine President Zelensky during talks on the 17th, demanding that Ukraine compromise on territorial issues to quickly achieve a ceasefire. The two sides quarreled. As he left the White House, Zelensky told reporters that discussions on territorial issues were a "difficult" and "sensitive" topic and reiterated that Ukraine needed "strong security guarantees."
Professor at the Institute of International Relations of the People's University of China and deputy director of the Center for American Research, Tōdai Ming, said in an interview with The Press (www.thepaper.cn), the US-Russian leaders were willing to interact again, and also showed a willingness to solve the problem through communication exchanges, dialogue and consultation. But if the dialogue "cannot solve the problem from the essence, and ultimately effectively a ceasefire, the solution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is still a long way to go".
Chen Yuze, deputy director of the Eurasian Institute of China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told The Paper that Trump's position on resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict is constantly swinging and changeable, indicating that he lacks a coherent or well-thought-out policy on the Russia-Ukraine issue. "It fluctuates with Trump's own understanding of this issue or his emotional changes. Under such circumstances, it is very difficult for Trump to achieve his goal in a short time."
Trump repeatedly
Trump said in a statement at the White House that he didn’t think Ukraine would win the final win, adding that “they can still win, the war is a strange thing, anything can happen.”
The day before, when asked on Air Force One how to deal with the Donbass region, Trump replied, “It’s okay to maintain the status quo. That land is now divided and I think 78% of the land has been controlled by Russia. Let it stay the status quo. They can then negotiate again, but my opinion is that the current front is to set a ceasefire, each home, stop the fighting.”
Trump’s statement is clearly different from what he said when he met with Ukrainian President Zelensky on the 17th. When asked by reporters on the 17th whether Ukraine needed to exchange peace for territory, Trump simply said: “No one knows.” “H, Trump has changed his attitude on the Ukrainian territory issue. Earlier this year, he pressured Ukraine to make concessions on the territory issue to end the conflict with Russia, and at the end of September also declared that Ukraine has the ability to take back the entire Ukraine and restore its territorial status.
In an exclusive interview, Zelensky said that Ukraine is willing to conduct peace talks, but will not make concessions to Russia, "If we want to stop this war and negotiate peace through diplomatic means, we need to maintain our position."
In dealing with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Trump has "his own logic".Toy Damian analytics said that from the current operational level of the situation, Trump is first talking with Russia, then Russia will definitely want territory, then Russia asks Trump to pressure Zelensky, Zelensky will disagree, and the result is that the deal is invalid. ""Trump felt that the U.S. control over Ukraine is stronger and more able to pressure Ukraine, but this is clearly inconsistent with reality. "
From the perspective of American media, Trump's attitude was obviously influenced by the phone call with Putin on the 16th. Russia said the phone call was initiated by Russia. According to the Washington Post, Putin proposed a territorial swap during a phone call with Trump, that is, Ukraine would hand Donetsk and Lugansk to Russia in exchange for Russia's withdrawal from a small part of Zaporozhye and Hersson. According to Reuters, U.S. special envoy for the Middle East Witkov, who has been running between Washington and Moscow, is among those most actively urging Ukraine to agree to the "swap" territorial proposal.
Chen Yu said that from the current situation, Trump actually wants to use a topic such as providing Ukraine with "Taxic" missiles to pressure the Russian side, "forcing Russia to engage in dialogue with him." "In Chen Yu's view, whether it is the so-called "Ultimate Communiqué" issued by Trump in July, or the "Taxic" missile issue, is not Trump really wants to discuss the decision in depth with the Ukrainian side, but just let Putin talk to him, so as to reach some kind of compromise a strategy.
There is a temperature difference in the interaction between the leaders of the United States, Russia and Ukraine
The call on the 16th and the meeting on the 17th were the latest bilateral interactions between the leaders of the United States, Russia and Uzbekistan. However, from the outside world, the atmosphere of the two interactions was completely different.
Trump and Putin had a phone call for more than two hours on the 16th. Trump posted on social platforms that day that he and Putin mainly discussed issues such as ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict and subsequent US-Russia trade. He described the call as "productive" and "making great progress." The report quoted Russian Presidential Assistant Ushakov as saying that Trump emphasized during the phone call that ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict would open up broad prospects for Russia-US economic cooperation.
Ushakov said that Trump stressed during the call that Ukraine needs to achieve peace as soon as possible, and he would consider all the opinions put forward by Putin during this call when he met with Ukrainian President Zelensky on the 17th.
According to U.S. media reports, the atmosphere during the meeting of Trump and Zelensky on 17 October was very tense.The Financial Times on 20 October that informed people said that the two people's meeting on the same day evolved into "blasphemy", and Trump "has been cursing".
The report, citing informed sources, said Trump left the frontline map of Ukraine aside during the talks, insisting that Zelensky hand over the entire Donbass region to Putin, and repeatedly repeated the key points of the conversation put forward in Putin's call the day before. The tense meeting was similar to the unpleasant meeting at the White House in February this year, when Trump and Vice-President Wences severely criticized Zelensky's lack of gratitude for the United States.
According to BBC, Zelensky again expressed his desire to participate in the Budapest meeting "in some form" in an interview on the 20th, saying that the meeting with Trump on 17th was sincere and that he told Trump that his main goal was to a just peace, not a fast peace.
Ukrainian political analyst Mikola Davyduik, speaking about the latest meeting between Trump and Zelensky, said: “We did not get the results we wanted.”
From the order arrangement of Trump’s first call with Putin, then meeting Zelensky can be seen that Trump’s so-called “double-layer deal” is actually wanting “first to form a result through a big deal, then let Ukraine accept the deal, but this is clearly inconsistent with the facts.” “The main means of U.S. pressure on Ukraine is to cancel aid, but cancellation of aid means Russia’s greater advantage on the battlefield, then Russia in the next negotiations will demand more interests including territory, Ukraine is more difficult to accept,” in this case, how can the United States talk to Ukraine? if the United States continues to help Ukraine, it is a vicious cycle.”
Chen Yu said that judging from the current situation, after the phone call with Putin on the 16th, Trump's policy has returned to a certain extent from the direction of supporting Ukraine and exerting pressure on Russia in the previous few months. In the framework after the US-Russia Alaska Summit,"this reflects that Trump lacks a coherent or thoughtful policy on the issue of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and he is easily influenced by the outside world." He analyzed that on the whole, Trump has only one goal, which is to "demonstrate his so-called 'achievements' in diplomacy in the process of solving problems with his efforts, like in the Middle East, but he lacks complete thinking about how to achieve this goal."
It is difficult for Russia to peace in the short term.
Both experts said that in the current situation, despite Trump’s continued propaganda of his efforts to mediate the conflict in Russia and Ukraine, it may be difficult to see the possibility of a real ceasefire and peace in Russia in the near term.
Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Olga Stevanishina, said on the 17th that a few hours before Putin and Trump spoke Mandarin, Russia launched a large-scale air strike on Ukraine, which "revealed Moscow's true attitude towards peace."
In fact, while work at the diplomatic level is in full swing, the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine is also continuing. According to a report by Qatar's Al Jazeera TV on October 21, Ukrainian officials said that Russia launched attacks on Kherson, Chernihiv, Krovsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Belgorod in Ukraine that day. Attacks caused many deaths and injuries. According to Xinhua News Agency, Zelensky said on the 20th that Ukraine is preparing to sign an order agreement involving 25 "Patriot" air defense missile systems with U.S. defense companies.
Ukraine already has some “Patriot” air defense missile systems, but that’s not enough to protect most of its major cities or energy infrastructure, British media said, with the winter approaching, these infrastructures could again be heavily attacked by Russia.
Chen Yu said that in the short term, it is still very difficult for Trump to achieve the goal of mediating the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. On the one hand, judging from the battlefield situation, Russia and Ukraine still have the will and ability to fight, and both sides lack the will to compromise. Therefore, in this case, various dialogues are held, but in fact, they lack dialogue supported by the actual situation on the battlefield.
On the other hand, in the face of Trump's mediation, Ukraine and Russia have their respective purposes. Chen Yu said that for Ukraine, Ukraine wants to use this mood of Trump's mediation, trying to shape the US's Russian-Ukrainian policy, while fighting for the United States to provide more support to Ukraine; while the Russian side wants to fight with Trump's turn to the future of the United States in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and other issues, cling to Russia's position.
According to the Guardian, Zelensky will travel to London on Friday (24), to attend the "voluntary alliance" meeting, where he will hold "multiple rounds of talks and negotiations" with European leaders.The European Union's High Commissioner for Foreign and Security Affairs Karas said on the 20th that although she believes Trump "heartfully" desires peace, "these meetings will have no results if Ukraine or Europe is not involved, and pressure on Ukraine is not the right way to end the conflict in Russia."
The Ukrainian conflict is the result of the United States’ involvement in regional geopolitics and eventually driven by other factors and forces in order to maintain its hegemonic position in Europe, he said, “It is a structural problem that leads the United States and Ukraine to be bound in strategic interests, or in the face of Russia,” he said, “from the perspective of the geopolitical and European security framework, there is a clear distortion between the role of the United States in the Russian conflict and the ‘trade role’ Trump wants.”
In view of the current situation, more than three years after the outbreak of the conflict, the parties began to communicate and interact at the highest level, this is a positive signal that if in the future there is a real tripartite, or more, interaction with which Zelensky also joined, the solution of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is still possible, "at least it is more likely to a ceasefire such a state."