Helsinki Summit (2018)

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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at their meeting in Helsinki.

The summit in Helsinki took place on July 16, 2018 between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the President of the United States Donald Trump in the Presidential Palace in Helsinki instead.

It was the first official meeting of the presidents of the two countries since Trump took office on January 20, 2017. Before that, Trump and Putin only had unofficial talks at the G20 summit in Hamburg in July 2017 and at the APEC meeting in November 2017.

Before the meeting

The bilateral relations between Russia and the United States are believed to be burdened by numerous factors. These include allegations by the US judiciary and secret services ( CIA and NSA ) that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in the United States . On October 7, 2016, the US administration under Obama officially accused Russia of hacking emails from the DNC , leading Hillary Clinton's election campaign , from institutions and celebrities and posting them on WikiLeaks and similar sites. The special investigations into influencing the election campaign are ongoing. Russia denies these accusations as "nonsense". Other key causes include the situations surrounding the war in Ukraine , the war in Syria , the annexation of Crimea , nuclear armament and missile defense , for which sanctions have already been imposed on Russia .

Before his election as US president , Trump had repeatedly claimed that he could significantly improve relations with Russia. On June 27, 2018, John R. Bolton , US Security Advisor since April 2018, and Putin met to discuss details of the summit and other bilateral issues. On June 28, the White House and the Kremlin announced the date and location of the summit.

A group of eight high-ranking US Democratic Senators appealed to Trump not to meet Putin in private: Minority Leader Charles Schumer , 'Minority Whip' Dick Durbin , Mark Warner , Bob Menendez , Dianne Feinstein , Jack Reed , Patrick Leahy and Sherrod Brown .

Shortly before the meeting, Trump attended the 2018 NATO summit in Brussels and then visited British Prime Minister Theresa May .

Three days before the meeting, the US judiciary, through special investigator Robert Mueller , charged twelve Russian intelligence officials with hacking attacks during the 2016 US election campaign.

The day before the summit, the national US secret service director Dan Coats said that Russia is the "most aggressive foreign actor" in cyberattacks. The threat posed by such attacks has reached a "critical point". The digital infrastructure is "literally attacked".

The day of the meeting

The Finnish President Sauli Niinistö met Trump and Putin initially bilaterally. On Monday morning Niinistö and his wife received Donald and Melania Trump at their official residence in Mäntyniemi . Mike Pompeo , US Secretary of State since April 26, 2018 , met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov .

The bilateral talks between Trump and Putin took place in the Gothic hall of the presidential palace. They were followed by a working lunch in the mirror hall.

reception

The Economist called the summit a humiliation for Trump. The "smug" Putin had demoted Trump to an errand boy ("Mr Trump looked, at best, a mug.")

In the USA, the impression of the summit united supporters and opponents of Trump in the media in the view that he had embarrassed himself in Helsinki. Meanwhile, the media in Russia and other Eastern European countries pointed out that the summit did not produce any concrete result and that it was exhausted in mutual adulation.

Effects

The Russian side had hoped that relations would improve after a face-to-face meeting, even if the absolute majority in the American parliament (in the Russian language generally accused of "Russophobia") deprived President Trump of sovereignty over sanctions against Russia was. Russia was all the more disappointed when, on August 8, 2018, not a month after the summit, it was the White House and not parliament that imposed new sanctions on Russia.

Others

Helsinki was the site of the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975 , after a series of meetings designed to ease tension between the West and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War .

On the way to the summit, Putin's machine flew briefly in Estonian airspace - which is part of NATO - without having a permit.

See also

Web links

Commons : Meeting of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. New York Times of October 7, 2016: US Says Russia Directed Hacks to Influence Elections .
  2. ^ Whitehouse.gov: Statement from the Press Secretary on a Bilateral Meeting Between the United States and Russia
  3. www.warner.senate.gov (July 14, 2018): Do not meet Putin alone
  4. thehill.com (July 14, 2018): Senate Dems tell Trump: Don't meet with Putin one-on-one
  5. tagesanzeiger.ch July 12, 2018: A “stable genius” pulls off his show
  6. FAZ.net / Berthold Kohler : Trail of Desolation ( comment )
  7. spiegel.de: Twelve Russian secret service employees charged.
  8. spiegel.de: The head of the US secret service calls Russia the “most aggressive foreign actor”.
  9. American and Russian presidents to meet at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki - The President of the Republic of Finland www.president.fi
  10. Donald Trump's humiliation in Helsinki , The Economist, July 21, 2018
  11. Reactions to the Trump and Putin Summit in Helsinki , NZZ, July 17, 2018
  12. And you, Trump? , Novaya Gazeta, August 11, 2018
  13. ^ Andrew E. Kramer: Putin Jet Trespassed in NATO Airspace on Way to Summit, Estonia Says. In: The New York Times , July 17, 2018.