Two months have passed, and everything is the same.

The presidents of the United States and Russia are planning a new meeting.

The risk is imminent that Trump will be ousted again.

The meeting in Alaska on August 15 was a fiasco.

It was great to guess in advance.

Now Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are going to meet again, and the feeling of déjà vu is palpable.

In the run-up to Alaska, Trump set a series of deadlines for Putin to agree to peace (all of which were passed without action) and warned of “very tough consequences” (which are still conspicuous by their absence).

Putin is only interested in peace on his own terms, and if he is to come to a different conclusion, he must be pressured to do so.

Even before this meeting there are several signs for the hopeful that Trump may have finally understood:

• Trump has been nasty to Putin on social media, describing Russia as a paper tiger and saying that Ukraine can take back all the territory it has captured.
• The United States has given Ukraine targeting data on oil and energy infrastructure deep inside Russian territory, a truly important contribution that hits Russia where it hurts.
• The president has said he is close to approving the delivery of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, a long-range weapon far superior to anything currently in Ukraine's arsenal.
• Trump has had success—yes, actually—as a peace broker in the Middle East, which might strengthen his resolve to get somewhere with Russia as well.

Ahead of tonight's meeting between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House, there were hopes that those signals would translate into increased pressure on Russia.

The phone call between Trump and Putin yesterday, where they agreed to meet in Budapest within a few weeks, dashed those hopes.

Now taking a few steps back, the positive signals look like irrelevant noise.

Basically, there is pressure on Russia that would be needed simply not there.

Trump has indeed imposed higher tariffs on India, as a punishment for India buying Russian oil, but otherwise no new harsh sanctions against Russia are in place.

At the same time, the flow of money from the United States to Ukraine has ceased.

Ukraine can get American weapons – as long as the money comes from Europeans' increasingly thin wallets.

Among other things, the talk about Tomahawk missiles means quite little if the expensive weapons are to be stuffed onto a Ukrainian needs list that Europe cannot afford to skim off anyway.

Moreover, the number Ukraine could receive in the best case scenario is too small to make any decisive difference.

Trump claims that in the phone call yesterday he asked Putin if he"would mind if I sent a few thousand Tomahawks to your opponent?".

It is an unrealistic and frankly embarrassing flexing, when the US has only budgeted to build 57 Tomahawk missiles next year.

You can boil down the situation to two simple statements:

Putin has his goals. He is not deterred by words. He has also proven himself adept at playing on Trump's vanity and appealing to his delusions.

Anything other than another fiasco meeting would therefore be a real shock.

If you want to console yourself with something, I offer this:

The worst fears from the beginning of the year have not come true.

Trump could just as easily have abandoned both Europe and Ukraine, and placed himself even more clearly in Russia's corner.

In this situation, you might be happy with the little things.