“There has been no progress at all.” On July 3rd, local time, following the sixth call with Russian President Vladimir Putin since January this year, U.S. President Donald Trump gave a rather negative assessment of the dialogue between the leaders of the United States and Russia.
“We had a phone conversation, which lasted quite a long time. We discussed a lot of things, including
issues. We also talked about the war in Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine, and I was not happy afterward.
This call took place amidst the ongoing “face-to-face meetings” between the leaders of the United States and Russia, lasting about an hour.
After the call, presidential assistant Dmitry Usachev disclosed that Trump reiterated during the conversation the need for Russia and Ukraine to “expedite the end of military hostilities,” while Putin stated that Russia would not give up its longstanding objectives and demanded “to resolve the fundamental causes of the current situation.”
Interestingly, Usachev also mentioned that the two leaders discussed
“cultural diplomacy, especially through film exchanges,” but the U.S. did not comment on this.
“Putin views Russia-U.S. relations as a multidimensional strategic issue, noting that the issue of Ukraine is not the only focus. However, Trump wants to achieve his own ‘victory’ on the ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, believing that cooperation between the two countries cannot be bypassed over Ukraine,” analyzed Andrei Koltunov, former Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council, who is currently attending the 2025 World Peace Forum in Beijing.
Koltunov stepped down from his position at the Russian International Affairs Council this year. He worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian Academy of Sciences, serving as Deputy Director of the American Institute of Russia at the Russian Academy of Sciences and as an advisor to the State Duma’s Committee on International Relations. In 2011, he was appointed as the Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council by then-President Medvedev.
科尔图诺夫对《中国新闻周刊》表示，美俄对
“特普会”的期待依然很高，希望能有实质性成果，“这不是一般的领导人会晤”。他认为，“最好的情况”是在8月之前举行峰会，否则时间越久，特朗普越可能失去耐心，并被其他政治议程分散注意力。
在特朗普和普京通话的同一天，乌克兰总统泽连斯基发表讲话称，特朗普和普京是
“完全不同的人”，但“在俄罗斯，只有普京才能做出决定”，所以他呼吁领导人们直接对话以实现和平。
此前一天，美国国防部暂停了包括
“爱国者”防空导弹在内的部分对乌军援物资供应。美方称这是一项“局部”政策，并不意味着美国停止对乌援助。但《基辅独立报》披露，乌克兰政府在武器停运前完全没有收到事先通知，而特朗普此举只是因为“对乌克兰问题失去兴趣，将资源集中到中东”。
当地时间7月3日，美国得梅因，特朗普在“致敬美国”庆典上隔着防弹玻璃发表讲话。图/视觉中国
“特朗普不是一个很有耐心的人”
《中国新闻周刊》：今年
1月以来，特朗普和普京已经进行了6次通话，双方多次表示要“见面聊”，但美俄领导人会晤至今仍未实现。这是为什么？他们还愿意和对方举行会晤吗？
首先我们要明白，俄美双方希望在这次领导人峰会上产生一些切实的成果。双方过去有失败的经验，特别是在特朗普的第一个总统任期内，普京和特朗普曾在
2018年夏天于芬兰赫尔辛基进行了“特朗普1.0”时期的第一次俄美领导人峰会。
At the time, people expected this meeting to be a turning point in the relationship between the two countries. However, shortly after the meeting, the United States began imposing sanctions on Russia.
Therefore, for both Russia and the United States, handling the leaders’ meeting is not as simple as it seems. Both sides are very interested and understand many issues between Russia and the United States that cannot be resolved without a high-level meeting. However, during the process, both sides tend to take too long. Personally, I believe the best scenario would be to hold the leaders’ meeting beforehand. If it were postponed until autumn, there might be additional political risks because Trump might be distracted by other important matters on his agenda.
“China Newsweek”: The leaders’ meeting between the United States and Russia indeed requires extensive preparation. However, over the past few months, Trump has already met with Ukrainian President Zelensky multiple times, and their relationship has evidently improved significantly. Trump has also met with European leaders multiple times, who have been trying to persuade him to support Ukraine. If the leaders’ meeting between the United States and Russia continues to wait, will Trump change his view of Russia?
Trump indeed might change his mind. This is not only because he has meetings with Zelensky and European leaders but more importantly, Trump is not a patient person. Zelensky and European leaders will do their utmost to persuade Trump to change his view of the conflict. The key lies in whether Trump can see the opportunity to solve the problem. If he sees the hope for peace, he will work hard for it; if he does not see it at first, he will shift his focus to other regional issues to achieve his foreign policy goals.
Therefore, I have repeatedly pointed out that for Russia, there is a delicate balance: we cannot let Trump feel disappointed, but we also cannot give in too much to his demands.
对于两位领导人来说，还有一个更大的问题：普京把俄美关系视为一个重要的、多维度的战略问题，涉及俄罗斯与西方的关系、战略稳定、经济合作、潜在的联合投资项目等方面。对普京来说，乌克兰是俄美关系的一个重要方面，但不是唯一要点。所以普京一直在提出多元的方案和建议，试图
特朗普在不同领域实现合作。
但特朗普关注的是乌克兰问题。或者说，对特朗普而言，外交政策就是一连串的交易，每一个合作伙伴在某一个时间段内可以达成一项他感兴趣的交易。比如和欧洲交易时，他就关注国防开支问题；和伊朗谈判时，他就关注核问题。
现在，和俄罗斯接触时，他就关心能不能在乌克兰问题上取得
“胜利”——不是普京的胜利，也不是泽连斯基的胜利，
特朗普可以昭告天下的
“胜利”。他对于美俄联合投资感兴趣，他对于北极问题感兴趣，但对他来说，美俄合作不能先绕开乌克兰问题。
《中国新闻周刊》：虽然领导人会晤尚未举行，但最近几个月，美俄高层接触
，美俄之间的二轨接触是否也比去年同期更多了？
上台的背景下，美国方面有更多的
“可以做点什么”的乐观情绪。最近一个时期，我们不时接待来访的美国知名学者或前官员。他们以私人身份来到莫斯科，试图探索机会。我不想高估这些会晤，因为它们大多属于非正式的私下接触。但
“一轨”（官方）亮起绿灯时，“二轨”（民间）就会更加活跃。
科尔图诺夫。
NATO’s Decline is a Long-Term Trend
“China News Weekly”: In the recent call with Trump, Putin reiterated the need to address “the fundamental causes of the current situation,” and Russia will not give up these goals. The key issue is NATO. Regarding whether the United States had made a commitment to “not expand NATO eastward,” former Deputy Secretary of State Zoellick said in an interview this year that the US had proposed a “hypothesis” about NATO not expanding eastward during negotiations with the Soviet government. He also mentioned that if the Soviet side wanted to make a commitment, “they would demand written terms.” Is this claim credible? Is it a strategic mistake made by Soviet leader Gorbachev?
I do not fully deny Zoellick’s statement, but the key reason is that no one at the time thought NATO would expand eastward. He referred to the 1990 US-Soviet negotiations on the unification of Germany and the Soviet Union. At that time, there was a clear promise not to station troops in the former East Germany region after unification, which was a core issue in the multilateral talks on German unification, both sides agreed that NATO’s infrastructure and military forces would not be deployed to the eastern part of Germany.
It is hard to say this was a mistake of Gorbachev; he probably never dreamed of NATO expanding its presence to where it is today. I was a Soviet diplomat at the time, and I remember that just after the unification of Germany in 1990, a Polish official told me during negotiations that Poland was considering becoming a neutral country. It shows that at that time, not only were Soviet people concerned, many others believed that NATO would not expand eastward.
In the mid-1990s, Russia formally raised concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and the increasing proximity of NATO’s infrastructure to Russian borders. However, at that time, the US proposed that through the “Peace Partnership Program” (P P), Russia’s concerns could be resolved.
Afterwards, the Russian side attempted to resolve related issues through diplomatic means, but failed. For instance, in 1999, parties revised the “Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe,” and Russia fulfilled its commitments, yet NATO members refused to approve the amendments. In my view, this represents a significant strategic misstep by the West, leaving Moscow uneasy. Subsequently, the establishment of the North Atlantic Council-Russia (NRC) mechanism was attempted, which was supposed to alleviate concerns between the two sides. However, the efficiency of this mechanism was not high. We eventually reached today’s situation.
“China Newsweek”: At the recently concluded NATO summit, NATO member states pledged to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP. However, considering this is a long-term plan, whether European leaders genuinely believe that military confrontation with Russia will be a long-term trend, or are merely trying to appease Trump for the moment without seriously committing to this long-term plan?
You have pointed out that this is a long-term plan, with the completion date set for 2035. Yet, it’s unknown what will happen in Europe, Russia, and the United States over the next decade; no one can determine what will happen ten years from now. Therefore, I believe that European leaders’ commitment is essentially an attempt to soothe Trump, stating, “We listen and accept your orders.” Frankly speaking, I cannot imagine most European countries willing to increase their defense spending to GDP 5% during peacetime. Europe faces too many other issues to address, and most governments are composed of fragile coalitions, predictably, the issue of defense spending will become a contentious topic in domestic elections within European nations in the future.
“China Newsweek”: No one can predict what will happen in the next decade. But if Europe continues to increase its military spending in a certain period, could the confrontation between Europe and Russia become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
In other words, the NATO that was considered “brain dead” before the escalation of conflict in 2022, could it be completely revived or fall back into decline after Russia-Ukraine ceasefire?
To some extent, what you say is somewhat correct. We can imagine NATO as a large ship, and even if the captain orders it to turn its head or change direction, it will continue to move along its original course for a while. Therefore, no matter what happens at the leadership level or within NATO, the series of decisions and changes made since the escalation of conflict in 2022 will have a significant momentum.
It’s not to say that once the war ends, European countries will return to their pre-war attitude towards NATO as “brain dead.”
However, we should also remember that NATO was a product of the Cold War, an overly cumbersome and expensive bureaucratic institution. In recent years, attempts by the United States to expand NATO and make it “globalized” have not been successful, and leaders from Japan, South Korea, and Australia have not attended the most recent NATO summit. I believe this is because these countries feel that Europe’s issues are best left to the European nations to decide on their own.
At the same time, the United States itself is building a more diverse alliance system, such as the “US-Japan-Korea Alliance,” the trilateral security partnership agreement signed between the United States, the UK, and Australia. The United States has not directly transplanted the NATO model to the Asia-Pacific region, as it also feels that the NATO model is too inefficient and unable to respond to changes in the situation in Asia-Pacific. Therefore, it’s not that NATO’s “brain death” means the United States no longer cares about alliance systems, but rather that the United States is adopting new methods. In this sense, the decline of NATO is a long-term trend.