(EDM) The fruits of President Vladimir Putin’s “victory” at the meeting with President Donald Trump in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, are turning increasingly bitter for Russia as initial dismay and angry responses in the United States have continued to coalesce into strong pushback (see EDM, July 23). Perhaps the strongest manifestation of this reassertion of firm US stance against Russian attacks on the world order was the Crimea Declaration, issued by the Department of State on July 25, to much disappointment in the Kremlin (Forbes.ru, July 26). Putin had assumed that he had removed this issue from the agenda by casually mentioning, at his joint press conference with Trump, the mutual readiness to keep disagreeing about it. Instead, he advanced the idea of a referendum in Donbas, knowing perfectly well that it was a non-starter (RIA Novosti, July 27). The Russian leader presumed that the theme most ripe for mutual understanding and even agreement would be Syria. But what little consent was built in Helsinki on this badly managed disaster has evaporated since. […]
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