Putin expecting unilateral concessions from Trump at their impending summit meeting

John Bolton, Trump's latest National Security Advisor, and a 'former' hawk on US-Russia relations, seems to have had a 'complete Trumpian conversion'.

As reported by Kathrin Hille,

" John Bolton, Donald Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, has hit out at criticism of the US president’s plans to meet Vladimir Putin, as the Kremlin said the two sides had agreed a date and location for the summit." (FT : 27 June, 2018) (my emphasis)

Putin is 'over the moon' about this impending summit between himself and Trump.

"Your visit to Moscow raises hopes that we may make the first step of restoration of fully fledged relations between our government", Putin said to Bolton at their meeting in Moscow. (video above :

Denis Pinchuk and Polina Ivanova : Reuters : 27 June, 2018) (my emphasis)

Recall that in my blog entry of [9/6/2018] I wrote that,

""Like a bolt out of the blue, Trump announced yesterday that a summit meeting between himself and Putin is being set up.
.....
As Brett Forrest and Peter Nicholas report,

"Any meeting between the two presidents would be expected to include discussions on Syria, Ukraine and nuclear-arms control. The summit’s purpose would be to resolve longstanding differences, people familiar with the matter said.
....
[Trump] added: “There is no reason for this. Russia needs us to help with their economy.” He went on to suggest that a more collaborative relationship with Russia could curb the arms race." (Wall Street Journal : June 1, 2018) (my emphasis)" (blog : 9/6/2018)

So like Kim Jong-UN,  is Putin expecting Trump to similarly announce that he is going to lift all those sanctions against Russia at their impending summit meeting? "

This will be high on Putin's summit agenda with Trump since Nord Stream 2, Putin's weaponized pipeline against Ukraine, depends on the decision of the Danish government whether or not to allow Nord Stream 2 to pass through their territorial waters.

Trump may pronounce at this impeding summit that 'no US sanctions will be taken against any EU companies helping Putin with building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.(cf. blog entry [18/6/2018])

Also high on Putin's agenda will be a public recognition, by Trump, that Ukraine's Crimea really belongs to Russia.

 
Let us recall that even before the 2016 US presidential election, Trump legitimised Putin's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea, blaming it on former US president Obama! 

And more recently Trump, once again, blamed former US President Obama for Putin illegally annexing Ukraine's Crimea.

As Alberto Nardelli and Julia Ioffe (left) reported,

"President Donald Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian, according to two diplomatic sources.
...
Trump also blamed former president Barack Obama for what happened in Ukraine. "Obama can say all he wants, but he allowed Russia to take Crimea," Trump said." (BuzzFeed News : June 14, 2018) (my emphasis)

All of which once again raises the central question of what possible hold Putin may have on Trump.

As Colonel Peters states in the above video,

"When I first learnt about the Steele dossier it just rang true to me because that's how the Russians do things. And before he became a candidate, Donald Trump was the perfect target for Russian intelligence.
....
In the future we are going to look back on the much maligned Christopher Steele who took that dossier to the FBI as something of a hero ...."

As in his summit with Kim Jong Un, where he unilaterally decided that the US will,

"..... end joint military exercises with South Korea [which] took South Korean and U.S. military officials by surprise..." (Josh Smith and Phil Stewart: Reuters : 12 June, 2018) (my emphasis),

are we in for surprise unilateral Trump concessions to Putin at their coming Helsinki summit meeting?

(to be continued)