I think I will not be mistaken, supposing that at the end of last week in the Kremlin, a lot of champagne was drunk. Putin's dream came true: the US president, after much hesitation, finally agreed to meet with him. Diplomats are trying to "determine the format". In their jargon, this means agreeing when exactly the meeting will take place; Will the presidents shake hands or be confined to simple nods; How much time will be devoted to the press; Will there be a press conference and other procedural moments after the meeting?.

It is extremely difficult to determine the agenda and topics of the conversation: it is impossible to single out issues on which a rapprochement of positions is possible in a few days - although journalists carefully list the entire set of accumulated problems: Ukraine, Syria, "American summer residences" of the Foreign Ministry, "writes Yuri Fedorov in the column For "Radio Liberty".

However, the lack of real results of the meeting is unlikely to upset Putin. It is important not so much to talk as a photograph, on which he shakes hands with the leader of the most powerful power in the world. And if he is particularly lucky, he, as if by accident, throws journalists: "Donald and I discussed several world problems". Putin needs to neutralize, albeit in part, his shameful failure at the meeting with Emmanuel Macron. After all, the Russian establishment is increasingly asking: Do we need a president who is disdainfully turned away by the powerful of this world?.

Successful Russian intellectuals, of course, express restrained optimism. Alexei Kudrin recalled that after Putin's first personal contact with George W. Bush, "a significant part of fears and prejudices was overcome". He expects that Putin and Trump "will present to each other many arguments that will contribute to this". Naturally, Putin will not be Putin if he does not present his arguments: "And where is the evidence?" And, in general, we are not there. And if we are there, it's not us "- and so on.. He may hint that Trump and he, Putin, have the same ill-wishers in the US Congress. And share their own experience of relations with parliamentarians who unanimously support and approve the actions of the leader.

However, drawing analogies between that old meeting of Putin with Bush-junior in Ljubljana and his forthcoming meeting with Trump, Kudrin is mistaken. Then, in 2001, the world puzzled over the question: Who is Mr Putin? Today, everyone knows well: Mr Putin is a resident of "a different reality," inclined almost to childish lies and entangled in his intrigues politician who unleashed aggression against a neighboring state. True, even to hint at these circumstances, Kudrin, it seems, can not.

Putin's calculation is understandable. The question, in fact, is different: why should the US president meet with Putin, helping the Kremlin leader correct a noticeably shabby image while at the same time exposing his own? If you do not repeat conspiracy theories, then there can be two answers. The first: personally to warn the owner of the Kremlin that it is not necessary to play with fire.

This means: it is time to stop deploying cruise missiles on land-based bases, grossly violating international agreements; The collision with American aircraft in Syria or the Southern Baltic will turn into major trouble for Russia. Second: to try to find common ground with the Kremlin, closing our eyes not only to the increasingly authoritarian regime, but also to Putin's defiant behavior in the international arena - where and when it does not directly affect US interests. This is called a "pragmatic" policy, usually associating it with the name of Henry Kissinger.

A classic example of Kissinger's "pragmatism" is his assessment of the Pol Pot regime. In 1975, shortly after the Pol Pot party took over power in Cambodia, being Secretary of State of the United States, Kissinger told the Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs: "You must tell the Cambodians (that is, the Khmer Rouge,. ) That we will be friends with them. They, of course, bloody thugs, but we will not be harmed. We are ready to improve relations with them ". This statement came to my mind when I found out about the next visit of Kissinger to Moscow.

By the way, Kissinger's "pragmatic policy" often failed. So, its main task was to ensure a dignified US exit from the war in Vietnam. For four years he led tedious negotiations in Paris, and, finally, in January 1973 he signed a peace agreement. The future of South Vietnam was supposed to be determined on the basis of free and democratic elections under international control, from there, both American and North Vietnamese troops were to be withdrawn. The US withdrew its troops, North Vietnam, of course, no, and in January 1975 captured the southern part of the country. In other words, Kissinger's attempt to solve the problem on a "pragmatic" basis failed. Transactions with the devil do not lead to anything good.

But back in our day. Moscow Academician Alexander Dynkin suggested that the US president "breaks free from the shackles of his entourage," and expressed the view that the parties should "brush off the pieces from the board and start from scratch". It is clear that the academician wants to say something pleasant to his Kremlin curators. But he, like many of his colleagues, is mistaken. The tense state of Russian-American relations is not due to the intrigues of the ill-advised opponents of Trump and his entourage. The American establishment is gradually convinced that the Kremlin's actions pose a real threat to the security of the US and its allies.

It's not just Moscow's interference in the American elections. In the winter of this year in Russia, the deployment of long-range ground-based cruise missiles. This defiantly rude and provocative violation of the Treaty on medium-range and shorter-range missiles. In Washington, in response, there are increasingly persistent demands to withdraw from this agreement altogether. There was a real prospect for a new missile crisis in Europe, similar to the crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Then Mikhail Gorbachev was able to break the resistance of the Soviet military clique, and small and medium-range missiles were eliminated.

Staying "in a different reality," Putin hardly imagines how dangerous for Europe and especially for Russia may be a new missile crisis. But this is only one problem of many. If Washington closes its eyes on the annexation of the Crimea and hybrid aggression in the east of Ukraine, the next step of the Kremlin may well be an invasion of the Baltic states. Something similar has already happened. In 2008, the US and Europe did not react to Moscow's aggression against Georgia. In the Kremlin, they found this proof of the weakness of the West and invaded Ukraine.

To predict the outcome of the meeting between Trump and Putin is impossible.

And yet, most likely, they will look into each other's eyes, utter their "arguments" and part deeply dissatisfied with each other. With a good mine in a bad game. But if President Trump really risks "normalizing" relations with Putin, without waiting for him to leave Ukraine and Syria, then NATO should redouble efforts to protect the Baltic States.

Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Join also the TSN group. Blogs on facebook and follow the updates of the section!.