During the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, the first face-to-face meeting between the Presidents of the United States and Russia, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, took place. During the meeting, the leaders discussed key issues of world politics, including Ukraine's role in international relations. This was reported by The New York Times, according to UNN.
Details
The meeting took place on July 7, 2017, in Hamburg, when Trump was president. The publication, citing former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, publishes details of the dialogue between the two presidents.
Trump told Putin that he was considering supplying weapons to Ukraine and asked, “What do you think?” Putin responded by saying that this would be a mistake and that whatever assistance the US provides to Ukrainians, “they will ask for more.” The American president did not object, the newspaper reported, citing three officials.
According to the newspaper, during the meeting, Putin spoke disparagingly of Ukraine and “organized a master class on shaping Trump's thinking.” After the talks, Tillerson called on US administration officials to “work to change the president's mind about Ukraine.
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According to the newspaper's sources, the presidents also discussed Ukraine during their first phone call on January 28, 2017. Trump was the first to raise the issue, asking Putin for his opinion. The Russian president began to talk about corruption in that country, to which Trump reacted cautiously - he did not agree with his interlocutor, but he did not defend Ukraine either. At the same time, he acknowledged that the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv was preventing him from improving US relations with Russia.
On the same day, Trump heard a different perspective on Ukraine from former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who introduced him to the “history of Russian-Ukrainian relations.” Merkel spoke about the assistance to Kyiv from Europe and the United States under President Barack Obama and said that support should be continued, and Russian policy toward Ukraine should be softened to avoid “further destabilization in Eastern Europe.” “Thank you very much and goodbye,” Trump replied.
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