Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
One of them must have offered more concessions to the other...
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov confirmed on Thursday that Putin and Trump could meet as soon as next week following Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s “highly productive” three-hour-long meeting with his boss.
A venue has already been agreed upon too.
This comes a day before the expiry of Trump’s shortened deadline to Putin.
It’s still unclear whether Trump will impose more sanctions on Russia and up to 100% tariffs on its trading partners, however, but he just doubled India’s tariffs to 50% on the same day.
In any case, the question on everyone’s mind is what’s responsible for the upcoming Putin-Trump summit, namely which of them offered the most concessions to the other and why. Coming right before the expiry of Trump’s deadline to Putin, some observers believe that the latter is therefore capitulating, but it’s also possible that the “TACO” (“Trump Always Chickens Out”) theory will be proven. There are several arguments for and against each of these two schools of thought.
This analysis here from early March enumerated the five reasons why Putin might agree to a ceasefire and the five reasons why he might not.
As for why he might:
At the same time, he might still hold firm in his opposition to a ceasefire unless his terms from June 2024 are first met because:
This segues into the reasons why Trump might offer the most concessions to Putin. Briefly, this could be because he:
On the other hand, he might still hold firm in his opposition to coercing Zelensky into Putin’s demanded concessions for peace because he:
Everyone will soon discover whether it was Putin or Trump who miscalculated by not ending the conflict earlier, but they shouldn’t forget that while “China Might Not Want Russia To Lose, It Might Not Want Russia To Win Either”.
As such, China might try to beat Russia to the chase in clinching a “New Détente” with the US, which could decelerate or even offset Trump’s “Pivot (back) to (East) Asia”.
All that’s known for sure is that the coming week will reveal a lot about the factors that drive those three’s policies.