“The biggest difficulty is of course the Zelensky regime…It’s very difficult to work with him, because he has staked everything on autocratic power, on solving all problems exclusively by force, both internal and external ones. He will resist to the end, because any decisions will require serious concessions, and could lead to a situation where he has to hold elections or lose power altogether,” retired SVR lt. gen. Leonid Reshetnikov has told Sputnik.
The Americans sense this, according to the former spymaster, hence the tumultuous first meetings between Trump and Zelensky, which “went beyond the framework of diplomacy and meetings between leaders of state.”
The same can be expected of the Europeans – Macron, Starmer and Merz, “who are still trying by all means to continue the war” to “weaken” Russia, Reshetnikov said.
Difficulties aside, the Alaska summit came at a crucial juncture, a time when the international situation is fraught with serious conflict. It was an exchange between “between sober-minded politicians,” geopolitical realists not bound by the prism of their own ideology or worldview, something that could not be said of Biden or the Europeans, the retired spy summed up.