NEWSLINK: “What Russia hopes to gain from this week’s Putin-Trump meeting” – Washington Post/ David Filipov

” Nearly eight months after his parliament toasted the election victory of Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin will finally have his first face-to-face with his American counterpart Friday, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg.

But the optimism over President Trump that brought out the bubbly on the floor of the State Duma on Nov. 9 has long fizzled. The president-elect who was praised in Moscow for his seeming willingness to reconsider U.S. policies abhorrent to Russia turned out to be a president – embattled by an investigation into possible collusion with the Kremlin during the campaign – who has changed nothing.

From Moscow’s point of view, since Trump took office, the relationship has gone from abysmal to worse, amid growing tensions over the increasingly assertive role of the U.S. military in Syria. …”