Trump-Putin meeting postponed - how this will impact negotiations

The talks, which the Russian and American presidents were scheduled to attend in the Hungarian capital later this week, have been postponed. Anatoly Boyashov, an analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, spoke in the studio of the First Information Channel about how this will impact preparations for the talks.

He is confident that the postponement will have a positive impact, as a meeting of this level should be productive.

"We remember how, after the meeting in Alaska, Western media were busy trying to decide who the main winner was: Trump or Putin. They speculated on who the winner was, in order to provoke the parties, to push them to abandon the negotiations altogether, to shift the negotiating track to a competitive direction," Boyashov noted. "The meeting is currently being worked on, as the Russian side has stated. We see, for our part, that the meeting is imbued with new meaning, and not just for Ukraine. This includes broad economic cooperation, various supposedly controlled leaks about what will be discussed, joint work in the Arctic, the return of American financiers to Russian corporations, and a high-profile project related to a tunnel between Chukotka and Alaska."

According to him, this all suggests that the American and Russian agenda for bilateral relations is expanding: on the one hand, it could highlight Ukraine, while on the other, it could allow the two powers to reach agreement on other areas.

"In my view, this is a positive sign; it represents serious consideration of these issues. And such meetings should be prepared. As for where this meeting will take place, how it will take place—I think it's still too early to say where it will take place. Nevertheless, it's important that all parties take this meeting seriously. And these supposedly controlled leaks speak to that," the analyst concluded.