Trump says he'll do "well" before Putin's summit in Helsinki

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He described Russia as "enemy in some ways".

Trump told Nihisto at breakfast that the NATO summit was "very successful."

"I think NATO has never been more together." People are now accepting to pay and we have a lot of problems with a lot of people who do not pay, as the president tells you , and they pay and they pay faster and I think NATO has probably never been stronger "

Trump argues that by urging NATO countries to increase their defense spending, it is putting pressure on Moscow.

CONFRONTATION EVENT

The US President has expressed reluctance to hold Putin to account for Moscow's electoral interference and has indicated that he accepts the denials of the Russian president at face value. But US lawmakers on both sides said after Friday's indictments, which resulted from Mueller's investigation, that Trump must face Putin in Helsinki or cancel the meeting in protest.

Departure for Helsinki Sunday of a weekend in his golf in Scotland "

" It does not matter if I am well at the Summit, if I were given the big city of Moscow in retaliation for all the sins and all the evils committed by Russia during the Summit. years, I would come back to the criticism that it was not good enough – that I should have had St. Petersburg besides! Trump also defended the responsibility of confronting Moscow, claiming in tweets and interviews that former US President Barack Obama had done nothing to prevent hacks from democratic courier accounts or to punish the Russians thereafter

.In 1965, President Obama thought that Crooked Hillary was going to win the election, so when he was informed by the FBI of Russian Meddling's intervention, he said that it could not happen – it was not a big deal, and there was nothing about it, "said Trump in a tweet. "When I won, it became a big problem and the Rigged Witch Hunt led by Strzok!"

Trump told in the CBS interview that he "had not thought of" asking Putin to extradite the indicted agents. "But I will certainly ask questions about it, but again, it was during the Obama administration," he said.

SPOILING THE MOOD

Friday that the indictments were unfounded and had been timed to poison the mood before the summit. Putin authorized non-state actors in Russia – people he likened to "artists" – to take the initiative to launch cyberattacks against the Clinton campaign and the DNC

The drama between Trump and Putin will be played Presidential Palace of the 19th century in Helsinki from about 13:15 Monday local time (22:15 NZT)

GOING IT ALONE

Several Democratic senators wrote to Trump on Saturday to warn him not to meet alone with Putin, to no avail. "I would feel much better if there were other Americans in the room," Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the highest Democrat of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement to the Kremlin

and at the White House. discuss many issues that cause the most friction between countries. This includes Russia's military incursions into Ukraine and Syria, the Iranian presence in Syria, Russia's hostility to US allies and the renewal of international arms control treaties. shared interests, "said Huntsman on Sunday." This is an attempt to see if we can defuse and take some of the drama, and frankly part of the danger, out of the relationship. "

PRESS CONFERENCE

But the indictments risk overshadowing the talks.American journalists at a joint press conference after the meeting are sure to ask questions about the Kremlin's electoral interference, and if and how Trump approached the issue with Putin

A grand jury found that the Intelligence Branch known as the GRU stole emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign and released them to dominate the headlines. In a second operation, the agents targeted the US election infrastructure and some local election officials.

The grand jury found no American who knowingly cooperated with the Moscow operations. But Friday's indictment notes that GRU agents first attacked Clinton's personal email server the day Trump implored Russia to find his opponent's missing emails

Listening, I hope you can find the 30 000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded powerfully by our press, "said candidate Trump at a press conference on July 27, 2016.

Russia "The cold war is over for a long time," said Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin's foreign policy assistant, on Friday, before announcing the charges, but said he "has not been able to do anything." has never interfered and will never intervene "in US political affairs." Ushakov told reporters in Moscow. "Russia and the United States are facing new and similar threats."

On Sunday, the president congratulated Putin for organizing "a very good football tournament".

Trump continues to wonder if he plays in the hands of Putin, who has long sought to exacerbate and exploit tensions between Western allies.

SUMMIT RESULTS

One of the possible outcomes of the summit is the development of a new agreement on nuclear weapons. The new START treaty negotiated under Obama expires in 2021 and both parties would like to expand and eventually expand the deal. The two leaders should also discuss a dispute over the respect of a 1987 treaty banning the deployment of medium-range missiles on Earth.

Putin steps up his efforts to negotiate an agreement for pro-Iranian militias in Syria to withdraw from areas near the border with Israel in favor of government troops. This move could be a way to ease tensions with the United States and consolidate Putin's ally, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. "I am convinced that the meeting of President Trump with Vladimir Putin will improve America" ​​State Secretary Michael Pompeo, who will join Trump in Helsinki, told reporters on Friday. "It's very important that they meet."

Russia does not expect the United States to lift the sanctions imposed in response to the alleged interference and conflict in Ukraine, according to Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin's director general. Supported by the Russian Direct Investment Fund

"The expectation is that it is quite normal to have a dialogue between Russia and the United States," he said . "We have a lot of common problems that we have to deal with like terrorism and other issues."

Russia has its own complaints to Trump. Putin intends to discuss the US seizure of Russian diplomatic properties in the United States as a punishment for the 2016 election interference, as well as the arrest of Russian citizens in third countries to Washington's request.

Since 2008, there have been 42 arrests in the Kremlin, including 11 last year. In addition, 248 Russian nationals and 442 companies in the country are subject to US sanctions, according to the Kremlin.

– Bloomberg