The Possibilities – and Perils – of a Trump-Putin Meeting

EXPERT INTERVIEWS – President Donald Trump has once again defied diplomatic norms and scrambled the geopolitical picture, this time with a pair of conversations involving the Ukraine war. Trump spoke Wednesday with the leaders of Ukraine and Russia, but it was his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that sparked unease and even fear in many parts of Europe. 

That’s in part because of the nature of the call; according to the White House and the Kremlin, it ran for an hour and a half and was cordial and constructive. In Russia, some of the harshest critics of the U.S. cheered the news. “Europe is mad with jealousy and rage,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Telegram. “It shows its real role in the world. Europe’s time is over.”