Welcome to The CRC Team Channel.
The highly anticipated meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin took place in Alaska and ended without a deal to end the war. But, both sides seemed to appear optimistic that progress has been made. Is this a bad sign?
There is always a great deal of hype around a big moment like this. What was a realistic expectation before this meeting? Did anyone really think that Russia was going to have a complete change of heart and reverse course? The outcome was the most likeliest one to happen.
Some people had expectations because of their underlying political beliefs. Trump supporters wanted to see a cease fire happen to show Trump was more effective than Biden. Anti-Trump people wanted to see nothing come of the meeting. But, what happened was in the middle of the road it appears.
We will have to wait and see if there is any real progress that came out of the meeting and what will come out of the calls with our allies and the meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The road ahead is still going to be challenging. There is no doubt about it.
If you want to have any kind of deal, you have to be willing to hear the outside's point of view and what their ask is to determine if there is a potential for an agreement. Otherwise, you are not really doing anything productive. So having the summit was the right approach.