Estonian experts cautious about impending Trump-Putin meeting
While optimistic messages were heard from both the United States and Russia following Wednesday's three-hour meeting between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump's special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, Estonian experts remain cautious about the upcoming meeting between Putin and Trump himself.
Security expert Rainer Saks said it appears that Russia was able, at the Witkoff meeting, to present a proposal of its own to stop direct U.S. pressure on Russia.
"I think that President Putin made a proposal to negotiate some kind of partial or phased ceasefire. I think he did not give any concrete promise to end or suspend hostilities for any period of time, but offered some steps which, at least on the surface, it would be possible to move with, toward halting the fighting," said Saks.
"The first stage could be halting airstrikes on civilian infrastructure or on targets located further from the front line," Saks added.
U.S. policy expert Andreas Kaju, meanwhile, urged caution on the Trump-Putin summit, likely in the coming days.
"The question is whether these are good messages also for us and for the Ukrainians and Europeans," Kaju said.
"Today already there are some very strange stories going around about this offer, that it is not a peace proposal but a proposal for a temporary truce, with ideas such as postponing the determination of the status of already occupied territories for 49, or 99 years. Taken in isolation, without considering other context, this seems quite grotesque," said Kaju.
MP Marko Mihkelson (Reform) even called the meeting "dangerous," adding it is premature to hope for positive news for Ukraine and, consequently, for Estonia too.
"I think that Trump's goal right now is to stop this war at any price. Just today I spoke with my colleagues in Ukraine, and their assessment was that even if a ceasefire were to arise under such conditions, it would only be a temporary one," Mihkelson said.
Despite this, Saks said he believes that Putin has grasped that Trump can no longer be strung along with an empty process which lacks substance. There would be cause to endure sanctions imposed by the U.S. only if Russia were certain it could quickly achieve success in the war in the meantime.
"However, since we are seeing that Russia in any case initiated this meeting in Moscow and made proposals, then we can draw only one conclusion: Russia is not doing as well at the front as it would want to," Saks went on.
Mihkelson saw the situation in cut and dried terms. "I am really sorry that Western leaders are so weak that they do not see that there is only one way to end this war: Crushing Russia in its war of aggression. That is the only way. But unfortunately that will not happen," he noted.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to meet in the "coming days," according to the Kremlin. This follows Trump's comments about a "good chance" of meeting both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy together soon to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy expressed support for the idea, while Putin, though not opposed to meeting Zelenskyy, noted that such a meeting was "very far" from happening.
Trump has also promised more secondary sanctions, affecting mainly those countries, such as India and China, who are customers of cheap Russian oil, and subsequently hitting Russia itself. A 25 percent tariff on India came into effect this week.
Trump's deadline for further economic sanctions on Russia if no ceasefire deal were met was brought forward to today, Friday.
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Editor: Marko Tooming, Andrew Whyte
