Trump maintains Russian sanctions, approves Ukraine representative

U.S. President Trump said he didn’t discuss U.S. sanctions with Russian President Putin during their first meeting on July 7 at the G20 summit in Hamburg. “Sanctions were not discussed at my meeting with President Putin. Nothing will be done until the Ukrainian and Syrian problems are solved! ,” Trump tweeted two days later.  The two leaders agreed to establish “a channel of relations” on Ukraine, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the meeting.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stressed U.S. support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia and the need for Russia to take the first steps to de-escalate the situation when speaking to reporters after his two-hour, July 9 visit to the Ukrainian capital after the G-20 summit. During his visit, he met with pro-Western NGO officials, politicians and Western business leaders to discuss the situation with reforms and corruption.

The prior day, he appointed Kurt Volker, the former U.S. permanent representative to NATO, as special representative for Ukraine. “We are going to change the status quo because continuing to leave things the way they are is simply not acceptable,” Tillerson said, as reported by Bloomberg.com. “We have to reinvigorate these talks to move forward and that is the purpose of our engagement and the purpose of Ambassador Volker’s appointment.” Russia expects Volker will arrive in Moscow for consultations in the nearest future,” Lavrov said, as reported by thekorrespondent.net website.

Zenon Zawada: Volker’s appointment is the only major development to come from this weekend’s meetings, which won’t lead to much progress if the U.S. is unwilling to adjust sanctions. Given that U.S. President Trump is sticking with Obama’s foreign policy on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, we expect Volker will spend much of his time discussing energy and military cooperation with Ukrainian officials.