NEWSLINK: “The Trump-Putin Meeting: No More than Baby Steps. Nobody should expect major changes to happen overnight.” – The National Interest/ Nikolas Gvosdev

“Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were scheduled to meet for only about thirty minutes, but they remained closeted together for over two hours … on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, the first face-to-face meeting of the two presidents, even longer than the ninety minutes that George W. Bush and Putin had during their initial meeting. After the marathon session ended, Vladimir Putin indicated that an entire range of topics—Ukraine, Syria, counterterrorism, cybersecurity and the question of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections—was covered. The tone was friendly from the outset—“it’s an honor to be with you,” Trump enthused as they first met—and the body language between the U.S. and Russian leaders throughout the G-20 meeting, displaying signs of friendly camaraderie, is in marked contrast to the often stiff and tense poses that characterized meetings between Putin and Barack Obama. …”