(KNPR) When Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin on Friday, the whole world will be looking for clues as to where the fraught U.S.-Russian relationship goes next.
After months of speculation on the location and format of their first meeting, the two presidents will finally sit down together during a yearly gathering of Group of 20 leaders in Hamburg, Germany. […]
"Putin needs the meeting more than Trump. He's prepared to be flexible and adjust his behavior accordingly," said Pavel Baev, a research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. "He doesn't need to show his machismo."
The Russian president believes that real politics is decided on the highest level, Baev said, so for him, it's all about establishing a rapport with Trump.
"Here he hopes to have a turnaround moment, like when George W. Bush looked into his eyes," Baev said, referring to the 2001 summit when the U.S. president famously said he had been able to "get a sense of [Putin's] soul." […]
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