For Putin, the 'Summit He Has Dreamed of for 18 Years'
HELSINKI, Finland — https://tinyurl.com/ybeptek2
President Vladimir V. Putin did not get President Trump to endorse his seizure of Crimea, lift sanctions, halt a new arms race that Moscow can ill afford or cut a deal on any of the other issues that have so poisoned relations between Russia and the United States.
But Mr. Putin did get what he needed most from the meeting in Helsinki: a statement by President Trump that, whatever America’s intelligence community might say about meddling by Moscow in the 2016 election — and whatever the damage caused by Russian actions in Ukraine — Mr. Putin is welcome back in the club of global leaders.
While Mr. Putin seems to have secured no major concessions from Mr. Trump, state-controlled Russian news agencies, quoting the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, declared their meeting was “better than super” and (was) “fabulous.”
Mr. Trump declared to the journalists that before he met Mr. Putin Monday in the Hall of Mirrors at Finland’s presidential palace, the relationship between Moscow and Washington had “never been worse. That changed as of about four hours ago,” Mr. Trump said. “I really believe that.”
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