Trump, Macron to discuss Russia return to G8, CNN reports

U.S. President Trump and French Prime Minister Emanuel
Macron have reportedly agreed to discuss the possibility of Russia returning to
the G8 group of industrialized nations by inviting President Putin to the 2020
summit in the U.S., the CNN television network reported on Aug. 21, citing
high-ranking sources in the White House. The two leaders spoke by telephone and
plan to further discuss the possibility at this weekend’s G7 summit in France.

The same day before the phone call, Trump called for
Russia’s return during a press conference at the Oval Office. “I think it’s
much more appropriate to have Russia in. I could certainly see it being in the
G8 again,” Trump told reporters, citing the reason that “a lot of the things we
talk about have to do with Russia.” Macron, also interested in renewing
relations with Russia, was waiting for Trump to first express his intentions
before making the proposal himself during the call, CNN reported.

Also in remarks, Trump again revealed his well-known
sympathies for the Russian president. When explaining why Russia had been
excluded from the G8 in 2014, after the illegal annexation of Crimea, Trump
said “because Putin outsmarted him, President Obama thought it wasn’t a good
thing to have Russia in. So he wanted Russia out. Well, that’s not the way it
really should work.”

Zenon Zawada: This
development is merely the latest logical consequence of Ukrainians
overwhelmingly electing as president Zelensky, whose most important campaign
promise was to do everything he could to end the warfare in Donbas. His
election signaled the beginning of a particular thaw in Ukraine’s relations
with Russia, and the Europeans – also exhausted from the conflict – are interested
in taking advantage of this relaxation as well. The first major concession was the decision by the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to renew Russia’s full
participation.

Ironically, Putin’s political gains in the West are
occurring just as support for his policies is low not only in Ukraine, but also
in Russia, where protests have been flaring in recent months. A trend is
developing in which U.S. foreign policy makers – still hawkish against Putin’s
Russia – are shifting their agents of pressure on the Putin administration away
from European legislatures and diplomats, and towards the Zelensky
administration, which will be active in
supporting the liberal opposition in Russia.

With sanctions unable to collapse the Putin
administration (as had been widely expected in the West), and with Europe starting to slowly relax them, we expect
U.S. policy makers will make a significant shift towards using the
effectiveness of the Zelensky administration’s reforms to demonstrate to the
people of Ukraine, and especially Russia, the ability of Western neoliberal
policies to improve rule of law, economic conditions and overall quality of
life. Former President Poroshenko resisted many of these reforms, but Zelensky
appears to be eager to implement them.