President Donald Trump will finally meet Russian President Vladimir Putin face to face Friday at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

And Trump, long accused by domestic political adversaries of lending a sympathetic ear to Putin, is likely to offer the Russian president an earful.

The meeting’s tone was set on Thursday, when Trump gave a stirring defense of Western values in Warsaw, Poland. The remarks were definitely aimed at showing Russia that Trump was a pro-Western leader who values freedom and democracy — in contrast to the Russian tradition of autocracy.

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Trump also made clear he was irked by Russia’s spy games, which have roiled U.S.-Russian relations like nothing since communism.

“Today, the West is also confronted by the powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confidence, and challenge our interests,” Trump told a supportive Polish crowd in Warsaw. “To meet new forms of aggression, including propaganda, financial crimes, and cyberwarfare, we must adapt our alliance to compete effectively in new ways and on all new battlefields. We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes — including Syria and Iran — and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.”

The meeting has high stakes, and that’s why it will only feature Trump, Putin, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the Russian foreign minister, and two translators. Tensions, already high thanks to affairs in Ukraine, North Korea, and Syria, will be heightened now that Trump warned Russia against adventurism in his speech.

“The key goal for the Russians is to try to get sanctions lifted. I suspect they will be rebuffed [by Trump], and rightly so.”

For Russia, successful talks will chip away at painful sanctions caused by that adventurism and resurgent nationalism. For Trump, successful talks will win Russian concessions on bad actors in Syria, North Korea, and Iran, and in the fight against ISIS.

Russian Insecurity in Eastern Europe
Putin’s Russia is much the like old Soviet Russia of the 1980s — aggrieved with the West and the United States.

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Part of that tension is caused by NATO, where more than half of the world’s military might exists.

Russia sees NATO influence as a threat to its interests in Eastern Europe — a menace to its security that has now spread to former Soviet states such as Lithuania, and to former Warsaw Pact allies such as Poland. Putin would prefer for Russia to reassert its sphere of influence across the region — much the way as it did during the Cold War.

But its old allies have left. East Germany united with Germany. Poland, Romania and so many other Eastern European nations became free and wanted improved relations with the United States, Great Britain, France and other former rivals.

On Thursday, while in Warsaw, Poland, Trump boasted of anti-missile defenses that Poland and the United States would share. Russia sees Polish defenses as a threat on its border.

It is for similar reasons Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, illegally seizing the Ukrainian peninsula that has a Russian-majority population. Russian interference in the Ukraine is likely the first topic that President Trump will bring up.

But Putin may bring the topic up first, because of the sanctions the United States and Europe have placed upon Russia. The sanctions are crippling the Russian economy, says one expert.

“The key goal for the Russians is to try to get sanctions lifted,” said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation. “I suspect they will be rebuffed [by Trump], and rightly so.”

The sanctions, imposed by Europe and the United States, have cut deeply into the Russian economy, says Gardiner, “inflicting quite serious damage.” But Putin believes it’s a price worth paying to keep the Ukraine, a former Soviet state, weak and out of NATO. (go to page 2 to continue reading)[lz_pagination]