The Reason for the Trump-Putin Summit’s Puzzling End

16 August 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

There is much confusion about why the August 15th Trump-Putin ended the way it did. Here is a typical example:

meidastouch

A post shared by @meidastouch

The reason why I was expecting this outcome will be explained here.

On 4 December 2024, when Trump hired General Keith Kellogg to be his negotiator on the Ukraine war, I headlined “Reuters reports Trump is set to continue Biden’s policies on Ukraine.” and opened:

On December 4th, Reuters headlined [misleadingly in its ‘off the table’] “Trump's plan for Ukraine comes into focus: Territorial concessions but NATO off the table”, and reported from named and unnamed sources, what the proposals have been by individuals who have publicly stated their own recommended policies regarding the war in Ukraine, and all of these individuals have been neoconservative, which is to say that they assume that the U.S. must continue to be the dominant force and ultimate decision-maker regarding Ukraine and its international relations (indeed, international relations everywhere) — continue to include Ukraine as being a part of the U.S. empire.

The ONLY one of that article’s named sources who has actually been appointed by Trump to be a part of his Administration regard Ukraine is Keith Kellogg, whom Trump has given this precise portfolio, of being the United States Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. And, so, Kellogg’s 9,000-word atrociously written plan — which was superbly outlined, summarized, and linked-to on December 2nd at the merely 1,000-word crystal-clear and accurate “What’s Inside Keith Kellogg’s Ukraine Peace Plan?”, and so I won’t say anything more about it — does actually have some important confirmation by today’s Donald Trump, because Trump gave this portfolio to Kellogg. This plan is the main one that the Reuters article cites. Reuters accurately characterizes what it says, including that, “Trump's advisers would try forcing Moscow and Kyiv into negotiations with carrots and sticks, including halting military aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to talk but boosting assistance if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses.”

In other words, Trump’s plan is to threaten Russia — which is clearly heading toward victory in Ukraine — by “boosting assistance if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses.”

Notice there that Reuters doesn’t want its readers to know that Russia is clearly heading toward victory in Ukraine, and that it ALSO doesn’t want them to know that that word “boosting” would be applied specifically to constitute boosting-to-UKRAINE, which means to CONTINUE the Biden Administration’s policy regarding this war: i.e., to intensify America’s war against Russia.

Another vaguery in that article is “NATO membership for Ukraine would be put on hold.” The actual statement in the Kellogg plan is that Trump should “put off NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period in exchange for a comprehensive and verifiable peace deal with security guarantees [FOR UKRAINE -- so the U.S. Government would CONTINUE to control Ukraine].” Putin has repeatedly made unambiguously clear that one of his three NON-negotiable requirements in order to end this war is to make Ukrainian membership in Nato IMPOSSIBLE — not merely prohibited in the short term, but impossible ever. The Kellogg plan fails even to address ANY of Russia’s three bare-minimum requirements (those three non-negotiable requirements) in order to end its proxy-war against the U.S. empire’s war against Russia, that is being waged in the battlefields of Ukraine.

In other words: Trump’s policy toward Russia will be Biden’s policy toward Russia, and this is a policy that would lead inevitably to WW3, because the U.S. Government is — in its actions and not merely in its words — just as determined to conquer (control) Russia, as Russia is determined NOT to be controlled by ANY foreign power.

(And, so, too, we know why both the Reuters article’s headline, “Trump's plan for Ukraine comes into focus: Territorial concessions but NATO off the table”, and its report, are vaguely written, so as to avoid calling their readers’ attention to what the reality is that they are pretending to be informing them about.)

Then, on 6 March 2025, I headlined “Why America, the EU, and Ukraine, Should Lose to Russia in Ukraine’s War”, and opened by explaining and documeting that:

The war in Ukraine is, but in reverse, the same situation that America’s President JFK had faced with regard to the Soviet Union in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. would have invaded Cuba if Khrushchev wouldn’t agree to a mutually acceptable settlement — which he did, and so WW3 was averted on that occasion. But whereas Khrushchev was reasonable; Obama, Biden, and Trump, are not; and, so, we again stand at the brink of a WW3, but this time with a truly evil head-of-state (Obama, then Biden, and now Trump), who might even be willing to go beyond that brink — into WW3 — in order to become able to achieve world-conquest. This is as-if Khrushchev had said no to JFK’s proposal in 1962 — but, thankfully, he didn’t; so, WW3 was averted, on that occasion.

How often have you heard or seen the situation in the matter of Cuba being near to the White House (near to America’s central command) being analogized to Ukraine’s being near — far nearer, in fact — to The Kremlin (Russia’s central command)? No, you probably haven’t encountered this historical context before, because it’s not being published — at least not in America and its allied countries. It’s being hidden.

The Ukrainian war actually started after the democratically elected President of Ukraine (an infamously corrupt country), who was committed to keeping his country internationally neutral (not allied with either Russia or the United States), met privately with both the U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010, shortly following that Ukrainian President’s election earlier in 2010; and, on both occasions, he rejected their urgings for Ukraine to become allied with the United States against his adjoining country Russia. This was being urged upon him so that America could position its nuclear missiles at the Russian border with Ukraine, less than a five-minute striking-distance away from hitting the Kremlin in Moscow.

The war in Ukraine started in 2014, as both NATO’s Stoltenberg and Ukraine’s Zelensky have said (NOT in 2022 as is alleged in the U.S.-controlled nations).

This war was started by the U.S. against Russia — NOT by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 such as the liars allege — it was started in February 2014 by a U.S. coup which replaced the democratically elected and neutralist Ukrainian President, with a U.S. selected and rabidly anti-Russian leader, who immediately imposed an ethnic-cleansing program to get rid of the residents in the regions that had voted overwhelmingly for the overthrown President. Russia responded militarily on 24 February 2022, in order to prevent Ukraine from allowing the U.S. to place a missile there a mere 317 miles or five minutes of missile-flying-time away from The Kremlin and thus too brief for Russia to respond before its central command would already be beheaded by America’s nuclear strike. (As I headlined on 28 October 2022, “NATO Wants To Place Nuclear Missiles On Finland’s Russian Border — Finland Says Yes”. The U.S. had demanded this, especially because it will place American nuclear missiles far nearer to The Kremlin than at present, only 507 miles away — not as close as Ukraine, but the closest yet.)

Ukraine was neutral between Russia and America until Obama’s brilliantly executed Ukrainian coup, which his Administration started planning by no later than June 2011, culminated successfully in February 2014 and promptly appointed a rabid anti-Russian to impose in regions that rejected the new anti-Russian U.S.-controlled goverment an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” to kill protesters, and, ultimately, to terrorize the residents in those regions in order to kill as many of them as possible and to force the others to flee into Russia so that when elections would be held, pro-Russian voters would no longer be in the electorate.

The U.S. Government had engaged the Gallup polling organization, both before and after the coup, in order to poll Ukrainians, and especially ones who lived in its Crimean independent republic (where Russia has had its main naval base ever since 1783), regarding their views on U.S., Russia, NATO, and the EU; and, generally, Ukrainians were far more pro-Russia than pro-U.S., pro-NATO, or pro-EU, but this was especially the case in Crimea; so, America’s Government knew that Crimeans would be especially resistant. However, this was not really new information. During 2003-2009, only around 20% of Ukrainians had wanted NATO membership, while around 55% opposed it. In 2010, Gallup found that whereas 17% of Ukrainians considered NATO to mean “protection of your country,” 40% said it’s “a threat to your country.” Ukrainians predominantly saw NATO as an enemy, not a friend. But after Obama’s February 2014 Ukrainian coup, “Ukraine’s NATO membership would get 53.4% of the votes, one third of Ukrainians (33.6%) would oppose it.” However, afterward, the support averaged around 45% — still over twice as high as had been the case prior to the coup.

In other words: what Obama did was generally successful: it grabbed Ukraine, or most of it, and it changed Ukrainians’ minds regarding America and Russia. But only after the subsequent passage of time did the American billionaires’ neoconservative heart become successfully grafted into the Ukrainian nation so as to make Ukraine a viable place to position U.S. nuclear missiles against Moscow (which is the U.S. Government’s goal there). Furthermore: America’s rulers also needed to do some work upon U.S. public opinion. Not until February of 2014 — the time of Obama’s coup — did more than 15% of the American public have a “very unfavorable” view of Russia. (Right before Russia invaded Ukraine, that figure had already risen to 42%. America’s press — and academia or public-policy ‘experts’ — have been very effective at managing public opinion, for the benefit of America’s billionaires.) …

Then, finally, as the Ukrainian government (now under Volodmyr Zelensky) was greatly intensifying its shelling of the break-away far-eastern region, Russia presented, to both the U.S. Government and its NATO military alliance against Russia, two proposed agreements for negotiation (one to U.S., the other to NATO), stating Russia’s core national-security demands, but neither the U.S. nor its NATO agreed to negotiate. The key portions of the two 17 December 2021 proposed Agreements, with both the U.S. and with its NATO, were, in regards to the U.S. and in regards to NATO, that NATO must no longer expand and must reverse some of its expansions toward Russia, and that Ukraine must be permanently prohibited to become a NATO member. Then, on 7 January 2022, the U.S. and its NATO, contemptuously rejected Russia’s core national-security demands, which had been stated. Then, on 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine just as JFK would have invaded Cuba if Khrushchev during the 1062 Cuban Missile Crisis had rejected America’s core national-security demands. On that day — 24 February 2022 — Putin also addressed the Russian people on television and explained to them why this was being done. His speech on that day opened with virtually a summary of the reasons that he had provided 15 years earlier in his classic 10 February 2007 30-minute speech at the Munich Security Conference, such as when he spoke against NATO expansion (immediately after his discussing Ukraine):

NATO is not a universal organisation, as opposed to the UN. It is first and foremost a military and political alliance, military and political! Well, ensuring one’s own security is the right of any sovereign state. We are not arguing against this. Of course we are not objecting to this. But why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our borders during this expansion?

Putin has always known that this is a dream by the U.S. Government to conquer Russia by placing a missile a mere five minutes away from Moscow.

At least up until the 15 August 2025 private meeting between Trump and Putin, I have seen no indication that Trump has been informed of any of this essential-to-know history. Indeed, Kellogg still retains his position as the United States Special Envoy for Ukraine, and he continues to advocate that Ukraine (the nearest-of-all countries to The Kremlin) will ultimately become a member of NATO. And, on 14 April 2025, the U.S. propaganda agency Associated Press (AP) headlined “Russian missiles hit Ukrainian city of Sumy during Palm Sunday celebrations, killing more than 30” and reported that Kellogg “said the Sumy attack crossed ‘any line of decency’.” Trump, however, later commented “I was told they made a mistake.” He didn’t say who had told him this — perhaps it was the lone non-neocon whom he had appointed, his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. But Trump still hasn’t fired Kellogg, and Kellogg still advocates for Ukraine’s ultimately joining NATO. And, at least until the joint August 15th Putin-Trump summit, there has been no indication that Trump has been informed that the war in Ukraine was initiated by Obama in 2014 and NOT by Biden (as Trump has constantly been alleging), who merely continued it after Trump also did in his first term. Nor is there any indication that Trump ever had read Putin’s breakthrough 10 February 2007 30-minute speech at the Munich Security Conference (see its transcript here), which speech was accurately summarized by Wikipedia. That speech has turned out to have been 100% prophetic of, and virtually predicting, the war in Ukraine, and explaining why Russians will never tolerate any entrance of Ukraine into NATO — not now, and not in the future.

Whatever of this history that was unknown to Trump until 15 August 2025 can therefore reasonably be assumed to have been made clear to him by Putin on that day, so that Trump would now know that America, the EU, and Ukraine, should lose to Russia in Ukraine’s war that Obama had started. Should lose it not ONLY because they (OBAMA) had started it, but especially because, otherwise, this war will become escalated by the U.S. into World War Three, which would be a lose-lose war that would kill off more than half of the planet’s human population within just the first two years of the blasts.

So: the reason why Trump seemed off his game after the August 15th private meeting with Putin is that what Putin was telling him was not only true, but it was — to Trump — shocking. He had not encountered it in such media as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or Washington Post or Fox News or BBC.

The question is whether he will act on it. Of course, if he were a person of integrity, he would. But is he? And if he hasn’t been, then could he reverse on this? We’ll see.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.