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Spin Cycle: Russia, Russia, And You Guessed It — More Russia

"I think this is a very risky meeting upcoming from the perspective not just of Ukraine, but the Western alliance."

By  Virginia Kruta
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   DailyWire.com
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Spin Cycle: Russia, Russia, And You Guessed It — More Russia

As President Donald Trump gears up to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, all eyes — and ears — are on him and everything he says in the days leading up to the summit.

For those who don’t spend their Sunday mornings glued to the television — and their Sunday afternoons attempting to dig through a week’s worth of network and cable news media spin — The Daily Wire has compiled a short summary of what you may have missed.

Trump’s meeting with Putin is drawing attention for a number of reasons — not the least of which being the it could put an end to more than three years of brutality and bloodshed in Ukraine — but not everyone lining up to discuss the very important summit on the Sunday morning political shows appeared to have any faith or interest in it going well.

“We know that President Trump has wanted to meet with Vladimir Putin for a long time. He likes that one-on-one,” Martha Raddatz gave her take on the situation on ABC’s “This Week.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte seemed to be optimistic about the meeting — and told host Jonathan Karl as much. The meeting, he said, “will be important because it will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing this terrible war to an end.”

He added that he had seen “clear evidence that President Trump is absolutely adamant to bring this war to an end, but also to keep maximum pressure on Putin.”

Rutte also pushed back on “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan — who compared the Trump-Putin summit to the appeasement of Nazi Germany in 1938 — and argued that it was good for Trump to have brought Putin to the negotiating table.

“Obviously, when it comes to peace talks, the ceasefire, and what happens after that on territories, on security guarantees for Ukraine, Ukraine will have to be and will be involved,” Rutte said. “But on Friday, it is important to see how serious Putin is, and the only one who can do that is President Trump.”

“It’s really crucial that a meeting takes place,” he continued. “It is important to start the next phase of this process, putting pressure on the Russians exactly as President Trump has been doing over the last six months.”

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton cast doubt on the event, saying, “I think this is a very risky meeting upcoming from the perspective not just of Ukraine, but the Western alliance.”

Bolton went on to claim that Trump was more interested in the possibility of recognition than he was in doing what was right to secure lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine. “I think what Trump has done is make it clear that he wants a Nobel Peace Prize more than anything else,” he said.

ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce made it sound like the meeting was proof of Trump’s willingness to give Putin the upper hand in negotiations.

“The Alaska summit — which will be Putin’s first trip to the United States in nearly a decade and his first meeting with an American president in more than four years — allows Putin to avoid the new sanctions,” she said.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tried to stay neutral on the issue, telling CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” “Vladimir Putin is a really awful guy… If in fact an agreement can be negotiated which does not compromise what the Ukrainians feel that they need, I think that’s a positive step forward. We all want to see an end to the bloodshed.”

Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova told Brennan that she believed Trump would negotiate with Putin “from the position of strength,” arguing that he had already sanctioned India and had threatened additional sanctions on Russia.

Trump and Putin are set to meet in Alaska on Friday.

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