Expert Park: Trump better understood the causes of the conflict in Ukraine after the summit with the Russian Federation

The director of the Institute for Eurasian Strategic Studies noted that before the meeting, the American president said that the United States could discuss the provision of security guarantees to Ukraine, but not in the NATO format.

SEOUL, August 17. /TASS/. A face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin allowed his American counterpart Donald Trump to better understand the need to address the root causes of the conflict in Ukraine. This opinion was expressed to a TASS correspondent by the director of the Institute of Eurasian Strategic Studies, former minister of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Moscow, Park Byong-hwan.

According to him, one of the popular opinions boils down to the fact that no specific agreements were reached between the parties at the current meeting and that this postpones the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine. "What is significant, however, is that this time Trump appears to have had a deeper understanding of the need to address the root causes of the current war, as Putin insists," the analyst said.

Park Byong-hwan noted that before the meeting, the American president said that the United States could discuss the provision of security guarantees to Ukraine, but not in the NATO format. According to the expert, this "reflects a significant understanding of Russian concerns." However, as the analyst suggests, the parties still need to reach agreements regarding new borders and demilitarization. "Even if Trump agreed with Putin's arguments, it would be difficult for him to publicly declare this without consulting Zelensky. I think that it is too early to give a final assessment of the results of this meeting," the researcher concluded.

At the same time, he stressed that the summit itself showed that "the parties are striving for normalization of relations and cooperation." The South Korean expert recalled that these are the first talks between the presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States after the meeting between Putin and Biden in 2021. According to Park Byong-hwan, it is worth paying attention to the fact that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump discussed not only the conflict in Ukraine, but also, probably, economic cooperation and global security threats. "This, in my opinion, demonstrated that the United States recognized Russia as an important partner in solving international problems," the director of the research institute stressed.

At a joint press conference after the talks, the President of the Russian Federation said that the situation in Ukraine was one of the main topics. Putin pointed to the huge potential of business and investment partnership between the Russian Federation and the United States, noted the opportunity for cooperation in the Arctic and the prospects for interregional cooperation between the Russian Far East and the Pacific coast of the United States. Vladimir Putin also stressed that long pauses in contacts between the leaders of the two countries and the deterioration of bilateral relations do not benefit either the Russian Federation with the United States or the world as a whole.