Pavel K. Baev
U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest and imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since taking office, reportedly due to Putin’s rejection of a ceasefire in Ukraine.
The U.S. sanctions target energy giants Rosneft and Lukoil, causing their market values to drop, as the measures threaten export revenues since key partners, such as India and Türkiye, will have more leverage when purchasing Russian oil.
With hopes for a personal rapport with Trump fading, Putin has returned to nuclear brinkmanship. On October 26, he announced that the nuclear-propelled Burevestnik cruise missile was ready for deployment.
Expectations in Russia were soaring about the planned meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Budapest. The Moscow stock exchange registered a strong rally, and even jingoist pundits started to speculate about the prospects of a peace deal that would seal Ukraine’s defeat (TopWar.ru, October 24). Trump’s decision to cancel the summit, describing it as a “waste of time,” and to impose new sanctions on Russia was extremely shocking to many in Moscow (RBC, October 23). Mainstream commentators who were eager to praise Trump’s readiness to listen to Putin’s long harangue on Russia’s grievances and Ukraine’s insignificance now refer to the mercurial character of decision-making in Washington, D.C. (Kommersant, October 23). Russian commentators ascribe the turnaround in the U.S. policy to the malign influence of the war-mongering Europeans, but rarely mention the incompatibility between Trump’s stated desire for a ceasefire and Putin’s explicit rejection of any pause in combat operations (Forbes.ru, October 24).
The abrupt breakdown of the high-level dialogue came as an unpleasant surprise to Putin. He had hoped to strengthen the positive momentum from the telephone conversation with Trump by meeting in person in Russia-friendly Budapest (Nezavisimaya gazeta; see EDM, October 20). He sought to downplay the effect of Trump’s decision and was cautious not to disparage the new sanctions, but instead claimed they would have limited influence on Russia’s economic situation (Kommersant, October 23). He also dispatched the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, to Washington, D.C., who Putin likely expects to have a better rapport with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff than Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (The Moscow Times, October 25). Dmitriev announced Russia’s desire to conclude the so-called “special military operation,” but the economic incentive he tried to invent does not overcome the obstacle of Russia’s continued rejection of a ceasefire (RBC, October 25).
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