Iulian Chifu, foreign policy analyst and former presidential advisor on international security issues, emphasized for MEDIAFAX that the growing challenge of Friday's bilateral meeting between the leaders of the White House and the Kremlin is Vladimir Putin's openness to making concessions.
"The most important thing for Trump, but primarily for the Europeans and for Ukraine, is the extent to which Putin is willing to make concessions, to take steps back, to give up maximalist positions. To the extent that he can take such a step back by threatening sanctions, taxes, including those who support him, we can certainly think about a possible opening and relaunching of a negotiation process," he says.
The Kremlin's maximalist claims
Regarding the Kremlin's maximalist claims, Chifu claimed that"Russia wants a lot, including NATO's withdrawal to the level after German reunification."
"Of course, these are requests that are non-starters. You can't start any negotiations from here. Just as for Ukraine, they discussed demilitarization and denazification, meaning taking control of Russia's tutelage in Kiev through a puppet government, again such a situation is not acceptable," says Iulian Chifu.
The risk of Putin being brought out of isolation
He also noted the risks that the United States and the West are taking by organizing these meetings.
"Otherwise, major problems arise, first of all for Donald Trump, who is meeting with Vladimir Putin, bringing him out of isolation, offering him a platform, offering him a position that is very important in relation to his own public, which is already mixing these anti-war positions and creating a platform for him to say that we negotiated with the Americans, but look, the Ukrainians, the bad guys and the Europeans, those crazy people, as Medvedev said, are the ones blocking. So this would be a major defeat for the entire Western world," argued Iulian Chifu.
However, Chifu believes that Putin should offer something concrete to Trump to justify the meeting."I think Putin knows that he has to offer something to Trump. What he will put on the table, we don't know. We don't know what his room for maneuver is, just as we don't know how things will happen further."
The motivation behind this statement is shown in the statements made by Russian officials, as the foreign policy analyst says:"Medvedev's very high nuclear rhetoric and the online arguments with Trump, all these issues made Trump realize that some lines had been crossed."
Stopping attacks on civilians, a starting point
A possible starting point would be for Russia to stop its continued attacks on civilian cities in Ukraine, but"we don't know if Trump will embrace such a position, he will be convinced."
Regarding a possible cession of territories, Iulian Chifu says that"it could create a way to resolve the de facto issue, which could be quantified at a certain point."
"Or, from this point of view, you cannot reward the aggressor by giving him a part of the territories and possibly risking that in the future, when it comes to militarization, they will have another piece. In fact, Putin's version with the maximum objectives and level of ambition are of the stop and go type. They are not to resolve the conflict. Even if he were to sign a peace agreement, there is no guarantee that in 2-3 years, after he restores his financial and military resources, he will not return to take another step forward, to alter another piece of Ukraine," he mentions.
Romania and Black Sea security
Regarding Romania, Chifu highlighted the importance of defending Romania's interests in any European discussion, especially regarding the security of the Black Sea, but"the most important thing is for Romania to have its own solid defense capabilities, to rebuild its defense equipment and industry, to be ready to defend its territory at any time, and, respectively, to deter any type of attack on this territory."
