Olga Ivshina: BBC Russia Correspondent on the meeting between Putin and Trump

Time will tell if Vladimir Putin will postpone a meeting with Donald Trump, as he has done in the past.  

The Kremlin says the US President and his Russian counterpart have agreed to meet in the "coming days".  

The Trump administration has indicated, for the pair to meet, Putin must meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  

BBC Russia Correspondent Olga Ivshina told Ryan Bridge Putin's made progress towards his goals while pretending he's open for peace talks.  

She says he's pushed Ukrainian forces out of Russia's Kursk region, while capturing some villages.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Confirmation from the Kremlin overnight that a meeting between Trump
and Persian will take place as early as next week.
Time is running out for a six five I deal.
Of course, Trump's threatening oil sanctions on Russia by tomorrow.
Question is will he now wait for the potential meeting? Olga?
If Shina is the BBC Russia correspondent, Olga, welcome to
the program. What do you think will happen?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh, that's you know, that's a good question. If I knew,
I guess I would be somewhere else or working somewhere else.
But yeah, the truth is, the things are developing really fast.
But the latest from Trump administration it seems that now
they say that in order for Putting a Trump to meet,
Putting must meet Zelenski. But then earlier today, when Putting

(00:45):
was challenged by reporters if he's ready to meet Zlensky,
he said certain conditions must be fulfilled, and they are
not fulfilled yet, which basically signals that Moscow is not
ready to meet Dansky, which puts the subsequent meeting with
Trump into question. But I doubt that Trump will hit
with tariffs on Friday, bearing in mind the meeting is

(01:07):
so close and possible and his PR so called PR victory,
his possible PR achievement is so close. I don't think
he's going to risk it by introducing tariffs on Friday.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
But does that not just show that person is again
stringing Trump alone.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
It seems that up to now Moscow has been quite
successful in dragging on in postponing negotiations and in a way, yeah,
playing with Trump's administration on its terms. And we have
seen that Putin has achieved, not too much, but he
has achieved something. Meanwhile, First of all, he managed to

(01:46):
push most of the Ukrainian forces out of the coast
region of Russia after the Ukrainian centersion in twenty twenty four.
He managed to capture a few more little villages in Ukraine.
And yeah, yeah, he seems to have initiative on the FUNCT,
not as much as he wants, but he definitely has
achieved something in this last five six months. While he

(02:09):
tries to pretend he's still open for the peace deal
with Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
What's going to stop potent? I mean, he's obviously not
scared of more sanctions. He's obviously not scared of Trump
moving as nuclear as subs around.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Oh, it's a good question. I mean, definitely, Russian economy
is not performing marvelously. I mean it it does avoids anxious,
it does evade anxious quite successfully on some fronts. But
on the other front, we see that it's dependence on
the trade with China, it dependence on military equipment from

(02:42):
from North Korea is raising, and there's something which is
mister put not happy about. And of course if Trump
hits with tariffs, it Trumps manages to cut Russian oil
supplies to the global salt, that might hit Russia quite hard.
So definitely mister Puttin will try to avoid that either
we diplomacy all with chess games on the on the

(03:07):
global chess board, but definitely he won't stop, and he
definitely wants to achieve some guarantees of how he sees it,
European security and Russian security how he sees it, which
means promise of NATO, not not not including Ukraine and

(03:29):
basically not not not enlarging to the east.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Oh goat, appreciate your insights as always. O'llgative. China the baby,
says Russia correspondent. For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge,
listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
It being from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.