US President Donald Trump has said he may cancel a long-awaited summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after a confrontation at sea between Russia and Ukraine led Kiev to warn of the threat of “full-scale war”.

Trump is scheduled to meet Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires at the end of this week but warned it would depend on the results of a report being prepared by his national security advisers about Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian ships.

“Maybe I won’t have the meeting. Maybe I won’t even have the meeting,” he told the Washington Post on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier warned that the standoff could herald more drastic developments as tensions escalate between the ex-Soviet neighbours.

“I don’t want anyone to think this is fun and games. Ukraine is under threat of full-scale war with Russia,” Poroshenko said.

The number of Russian units deployed along the Ukraine-Russian border has “grown dramatically” while the number of Russian tanks has tripled, Poroshenko said, citing intelligence reports but giving no precise timescale for the buildup.

He spoke after Russian forces seized three of Kiev’s ships off the coast of Crimea on Sunday and captured 24 Ukrainian sailors.

On Tuesday, a court in Simferopol, the main city in Russian-annexed Crimea, ordered 12 of the sailors to be held in pre-trial detention for two months. Three hospitalised sailors were also formally detained for two months. The rest are to appear in court on Wednesday.

The move stoked already high tensions between Moscow and Kiev, as Russia continues to accuse the sailors of crossing illegally into Russian waters and of ignoring warnings from its border guards.</s>UNITED NATIONS: The United States on Monday (Nov 26) warned Russia that "outlaw actions" like the seizure of Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov are preventing normal relations from developing between Washington and Moscow.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that "the United States would welcome a normal relationship with Russia. But outlaw actions like this one continue to make that impossible."

Tensions have flared after the Russian navy on Sunday boarded and seized three Ukrainian ships off the coast of Crimea, accusing Ukraine of illegally entering Russian waters in the Sea of Azov.

The confrontation at sea raised fears of a wider military flareup.

Haley put the blame firmly on Russia for the clash, calling the seizure of the ships an "outrageous violation of sovereign Ukrainian territory" and slamming "yet another reckless Russian escalation."

But she did not specifically threaten further sanctions, instead calling for a de-escalation of tensions over Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in a move never recognised by the international community.

"The United States will maintain its Crimea-related sanctions against Russia. Indeed, further Russian escalation of this kind will only make matters worse," said Haley.

"It will further undermine Russia's standing in the world. It will further sour Russia's relations with the US and many other countries. It will further increase tensions with Ukraine. "

Haley said her remarks followed conversations with President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and reflect "concerns at the highest level of the American government."

The US warning comes ahead of a planned meeting between Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina later this week.

Russia's envoy accused Ukraine of provoking the confrontation to justify the imposition of martial law and a delay of elections as polls show Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko faces possible defeat.

Ukraine's parliament was to vote Monday on a request from Poroshenko to impose martial law for 60 days.

Denouncing a "mythical Russian aggression," Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the council: "Our country has never caused the first blow, but it knows how to protect itself."

Ukraine called for a toughening of sanctions against Russia, with Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko warning that "if unopposed, the Kremlin regime will take another and another aggressive act" leading to wider conflict.

The Ukrainian ambassador cited audio recordings of communications among Russian vessel commanders that showed they were given orders to attack the ships after they had changed course and were returning to their Ukrainian port.

France and Germany, which lead European diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, urged Russia to hand over the seized ships and release the seamen.

At the outset of the meeting, Russia suffered a setback in the council after it sought to discuss the clash in the Azov under an agenda item that described the incident as a violation of Russia's borders.

This was rejected in a procedural vote, with only China, Bolivia and Kazakhstan siding with Russia. The council then discussed the clash under a less contentious agenda item.</s>The world’s principal forum of global leaders risks marking its 10th anniversary with an identity crisis.

The debut Group of 20 leaders’ summit was convened in 2008 to develop an response to the financial crisis ripping through markets. Leaders attending the latest edition in Buenos Aires on Friday and Saturday face shared threats from trade disputes to migration and climate change—but are so lacking in common purpose that a blowup looks more likely than a collective response.

President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda is one obvious culprit for the breakdown in global solidarity, but far from the only one. Even as some leaders try to put on a show of unity, others are increasingly going it alone, whether Vladimir Putin’s power play in Ukraine, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman’s business-as-usual approach after the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, or even Theresa May’s dogged pursuit of

Given the global challenges, it’s in many ways a perfect time for a summit. But the outlook for substantial breakthrough seems slim: Trump blew apart the G-7 earlier this year and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit ended in disarray this month without a joint statement for the first time. Russia’s attack on Ukrainian warships this week further diminishes the likelihood the G-20 will showcase multilateralism over nationalist isolationism.

The paradox is there may be little alternative to such summits, said John Kirton, who leads the G-20 research group at the University of Toronto. “If you believe the demand for global governance is great and growing, the only supplier left standing is the G-20,” said Kirton. “When leaders get together, big things can happen.”

And yet at this week’s summit, big things are more likely to be defined on the sidelines. Trump’s long-awaited meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping will be parsed for signs of a cease-fire in their simmering trade war. It will at best “produce some signs from the top that an agreement could possibly be reached—but very little on the details,” said Mary Lovely, an economics professor at Syracuse University who specializes in trade. But the U.S. “seems to have done a lot more work to prepare for a trade war than a trade truce.”

After dodging bilateral talks this month during World War I commemorations in Paris, Trump is due to meet with Putin in an encounter that may show whether the U.S. leader still wants Crimea to be recognized as Russian territory. The U.S. is also set to sign a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico at the meeting, even as Trump threatens to permanently close the U.S.-Mexico border.

The participating countries may yet come out the other end of the summit with a joint statement, but even if they do it will be watered down to accommodate the U.S. and others. It might not, for instance, even mention multilateralism. And then there’s the defiant Saudi Crown Prince; if he travels to Argentina, then all eyes will be on who—apart from Trump and potentially Putin—will shake his hand, let alone consider him a partner on challenges.

“My guess is a lot of the news will be made not by the communique that comes out, but by the bilaterals that are held—or not held,” said Ted Truman, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for Economics. “It’s not going to produce a breakthrough in international cooperation, if I can put it that way, because the people are not ready for a breakthrough in international cooperation.”

Trade, and Trump, will define much of the meeting. The same summit a year ago ended with a joint statement peppered with apparent Trump appeasement lines, such as condemning “unfair trade practices,” recognizing “the role of legitimate trade defense instruments” and noting the U.S. decision to quit the Paris climate accord. The final communique, in some sections, was less a unified joint statement than a laundry list of impasses.

The G-20 was established in 1999 as a forum for finance chiefs and central bankers from economies representing some two-thirds of the world’s population and 85 percent of global output. It was elevated to leaders’ level in 2008 in the depths of the financial crisis: the first summit was held in Washington two months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

As leaders head to Argentina, the G-20 lacks the urgency it had at its outset.

“But there’s a new crisis brewing, which is trade,” said Ronaldo Costa Filho, undersecretary general for Economic and Financial Affairs at Brazil’s foreign ministry, who is the country’s sherpa, or leader’s envoy at the summit. Even so, “joint consensus recommendations” are not yet within reach, he said.

G-7 leaders meeting in Canada in June did manage to reach a common statement, only for Trump to disavow it hours later with a tweet from Air Force One, while labeling host Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “dishonest & weak.”

Five months on, the formal G-20 agenda as set by host Argentina focuses on infrastructure, jobs of the future and food security. The fight over steel and aluminum tariffs, and the threat of U.S. tariffs on auto imports, will also dominate sideline discussions, as will the future of the World Trade Organization, something of a sibling entity for the G-20. Talks began last month on how to reform it in a way both China and the U.S. would agree to.

The Khashoggi murder looms large. The summit will include Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has shared recordings related to Khashoggi’s murder with allies; Germany’s Angela Merkel, who has suspended Saudi arms exports; and Trudeau, who’s been locked in a diplomatic fight with the kingdom since before Khashoggi’s death. Trump has effectively deflected any Saudi role in the killing.

At the center of the diplomacy is Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri, who has sought to hold the summit together in something of a bid to re-enter the upper tier of world powers. But he’s vying to join a club at risk of collapse; take Brazil and Mexico, which will be represented by lame-duck leaders and not the incoming populists who’ve won power.

It will be up to Macri and the liberal order as represented by Trudeau, Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron—the latter two not without their domestic difficulties—to try to save the G-20’s multilateral mission from its growing isolationist tendencies, according to Kirton. “We have two agendas warring withing the bosom of a single summit,” he said.</s>BUENOS AIRES: World leaders began arriving in Argentina on Wednesday (Nov 28) ahead of a G20 summit dogged by increasingly strident warnings about the impact on the world economy of threatened US trade tariffs.

US President Donald Trump's trade war with China is a dominant theme at the weekend summit but one sideshow is how leaders deal with the presence of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The de facto Saudi ruler stepped onto Argentine soil bidding to shrug off international outrage over the murder last month of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Prince Mohammed appears to be enjoying a pass from Washington. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had seen no "direct" evidence linking the prince to Khashoggi's murder at a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss the killing of Khashoggi when he meets the prince on the summit sidelines, but the "main aim" would be developing Russia-Saudi relations, said Putin's foreign policy advisory Yuri Ushakov.

Putin will be one of several leaders to meet the Saudi prince, who is also expected to hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN chief Antonio Guterres. A meeting with Trump has not been ruled out by the White House.

Human Rights Watch is also waiting for the crown prince, having urged Argentine prosecutors to charge him with war crimes over the Saudi-led military coalition's action in Yemen.

Argentina already has plenty to contend with as it hosts its most important international gathering yet in the middle of a biting economic crisis.

Angered by rampant inflation and soaring unemployment, an alliance of Argentine activist groups and trade unions plans a major protest in central Buenos Aires on Friday, the summit's first day.

Economic troubles could spread much further if Trump goes through on a threat to impose auto tariffs on trading partners including Europe and Japan, the International Monetary Fund warned in a pre-G20 report.

An IMF calculation "suggests that the resulting short-term losses could lower global GDP by about 3/4 percent."

Trump's trade war on China is already well underway, and he is threatening to impose deeper tariffs in January unless Chinese leader Xi Jinping yields when they meet on the G20 sidelines.

A White House official said that Trump sees a "good possibility" for a deal to defuse the trade frictions, as Washington demands greater market access and protections for intellectual property by Beijing.

En route to Argentina, Xi said in Spain on Wednesday that his government would indeed boost protection of intellectual property, although foreign companies in China complain they have heard such promises before.

"China will make efforts to further open its door to the outside world," Xi told the Spanish Senate.

"We will make a lot of efforts to speed up market access, improve the investment environment and increase protection of intellectual property."

Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator now at the Asia Society institute in the United States, said the best to expect at the G20 would be a "ceasefire" as both sides agree to go back to talks.

"The issues of concern regarding trade, investment and IPR (intellectual property rights) were not created overnight and cannot be solved quickly," she said.

In Buenos Aires, Trump is also due to sit down with Putin for a bilateral meeting that has taken on added import after Russia fired on and detained three Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov near Crimea.

Putin insisted on Wednesday that Russian forces were in the right to seize the Ukrainian ships last weekend, but Trump expressed "deep concern" at Moscow's actions against a US ally.

Trump on Tuesday threatened to cancel his planned talks with Putin at the G20 summit, but the Kremlin said it still expected the encounter to go ahead.

"The meeting is equally needed by both sides and important for the development of the general situation in the world," Ushakov said.</s>President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia had no choice but to cut its dependency on dollars to conduct trade, after becoming the target of increasingly severe US sanctions.

"It isn't our goal to desert the dollar," Putin told an investment forum in comments broadcast on national television. "The dollar is deserting us."

The dollar is the preeminent currency in international trade. Washington has made it difficult for some targets of its sanctions to use the currency.

"Those who are taking such decisions are not shooting themselves in the foot, but a bit higher," Putin said to laughter from the crowd.

Worries about the ability to use the dollar will push other countries to seek alternatives, said Putin.

Russian authorities have long talked about "de-dolarisation" of its international trade.

"We need to do it and I assure you we will do it," said Putin.

However, progress on that front has been slow. Oil, Russia's major export, is priced in dollars.

Nevertheless, much of Russia's trade with its ex-Soviet neighbours is in rubles, and Putin noted the country recently sold its S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries to Turkey without dollars featuring in the transaction.

Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov recently said India will pay for its S-400s in rubles.

Russia and China have also indicated they want to increase the use of the ruble and yuan in their bilateral trade.

Russia has been hit by several rounds of sanctions by Washington and the European Union since Moscow's intervention in Ukraine in 2014.</s>President Donald Trump has a packed schedule of meetings with foreign leaders when he's at the G20 in Argentina later this week but one person not making the list is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the White House announced on Tuesday.

'No,' said National Security Adviser John Bolton when asked if the president would meet with the prince. 'The bilateral schedule is full to overflowing.'

Trump said last week he was opening to sitting down with MBS - the crown prince is known by his initials - after he has repeatedly defended the prince against allegations MBS ordered the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

But officials on Tuesday released the president's schedule for his two days at the G20 in Buenos Aires and MBS did not make the cut, although several other world leaders will get face time with Trump.

His schedule contains meetings - or bilaterals as they are known - with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Argentina President Mauricio Macri, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The president will also have a working dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the two nations tussle in a trade war.

Erdogan, whose government has led the charge against MBS for the murder of Khashoggi, is expected to use his G20 meeting to use as a platform to demand accountability for the journalist's killing.

Trump said on Thanksgiving Day that the CIA has not 'concluded' the Saudi crown prince ordered Khashoggi's murder.

'Whether he did or whether he didn't, he denies it vehemently,' Trump said of the prince to reporters after he spoke on the phone with U.S. troops. 'The CIA doesn't say they did it. They do point out certain things, and in pointing out those things, you can conclude that maybe he did or maybe he didn't.'

'The CIA points it both ways. And as I said, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I will say very strongly that it's a very important ally,' he noted of the oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

His statement contradicts reports the spy agency has determined with 'high confidence' that MBS - the crown prince is known by his initials - ordered the assassination, which contradicting the Saudi government's claims that MSB was not involved.

The president has repeatedly defended Saudi Arabia as a 'strong ally' who has invested billions of dollars into the United States.

One of the president's most closely watched meetings at the G20 will be with Putin.

The two leaders will talk about security issues, arm controls issues, and regional issues including Middle East, Bolton said.

Trump and Putin spoke briefly in France when both men were present for celebrations celebrating the 100th anniversary of the armistice ending World War I but they have not had a formal sit down since their July summit in Helsinki, where Trump made news for backing Putin's assertion Moscow did not meddle in the 2016 presidential election, contradicting conclusions from U.S. intelligence agencies.

The president later walked back his remarks.

Another meeting that will be closely monitored is dinner with Xi, which comes amid back-and-forth tariffs each nation is imposing on the other.

It will be the first time the two have met since Trump imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports and China responded with import tariffs on U.S. goods.

Trump has threatened another round of billions in tariffs if China can't make a trade deal.

'If we don't make a deal, then I'm going to put the $267 billion additional on' at a tariff rate of either 10 percent or 25 percent, he told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week.

But Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow said Tuesday the president is optimistic both sides can come together for a deal.

'In his view there's a good possibility that a deal can be made and that he is open to that,' Kudlow said a press briefing.

He said China would have to come to the table with resolutions for issues on intellectual property theft, and forced technology transfers. He added that tariff and non-tariff barriers have to be solved along with issues of ownership.

'We want a world ideally of zero tariffs, zero non tariff barriers and zero subsidies,' Kudlow said.

'If China will come to the table - in this case the dinner table - with new ideas, new attitudes and new cooperation, the president has said he's open to it,' Kudlow said of the possibility of a deal.

Kudlow indicated the U.S. would use its economic might to strong arm China into an agreement.

'The United States is coming to the summit in very good shape,' he noted, adding that 'most observers believe China to be in a slump where as the United States is in very strong position.'

He noted additional tariffs on China is not the United States' 'first choice.'

'I think we are in far better shape to weather this thing than the Chinese are,' Kudlow added.

'There is broad base support for America's position that China should change its practices,' he said.

Bolton also sounded an optimistic note about the dinner between the two world leaders.

'I think President Trump has developed a very positive relationship with President Xi,' he said.

Trump said on Thanksgiving Day he was well prepared for his meeting with Xi.

'It's not like, 'Oh gee, I'm going to sit down and study.' I know every ingredient. I know every stat. I know it better than anybody knows it. And my gut has always been right. And we're doing very well. And I will tell you China very much wants to make a deal,' he said.</s>Nov 28 (Reuters) - Last year’s G20 is remembered for the moment when Donald Trump flew off in a huff, leaving differences on issues like climate change unresolved. This year, few Western leaders are likely to have any grand illusions when they arrive in Buenos Aires for this weekend’s 2018 summit. For many, it seems, the U.S. president is operating under one overriding world view. American foreign policy is for sale. The issue is finding just the right price.

Now, as Trump heads off for his second G20 conference – the premier gathering of world leaders, at least half of whom have been loyal friends and allies of the United States for a century or longer – it’s time for him, and for much of the world that once counted America as a firm and true partner, to turn the corner.

So perhaps it would be worthwhile to give the U.S. president a little cheat sheet he can take into each of his bilateral conferences – or even water-cooler encounters – that will help him work out where the nation’s most fundamental needs and desires really lie.

Among the G20 there is a core group of developed nations, then an outer ring of arrivistes. And finally, there are the hangers-on, “observers” who quite often need to be courted as assiduously as any of the primary groups.

Trump cares little for any of the countries in the core. He has already managed to create rifts with British Prime Minister Theresa May. Deeply wounded at home by Brexit gone awry, she could use a friend. She should not look for that from Trump, who fanned the flames on Monday by saying that her Brexit deal may make U.S.-UK trade more difficult at the very moment Britain may be much in the market for a loyal ally.

Angela Merkel is equally wounded and widely seen as a lame duck after announcing she would not run for another term as German chancellor. But Germany’s manufacturing and financial muscle are still key to any eventual trade deal between Europe and the United States. It would behoove Trump to put behind him that widely-disseminated photo of Merkel staring down a truculent Trump at the G7 summit in Canada in June.

Finally, among the European triad, there is France. Trump may smell some blood in the waters around Emmanuel Macron, whose popularity is waning. But the French president still aspires to lead Europe and no longer hesitates to take Trump to task when he sees a moment, most recently at the 100th World War One Armistice Day celebrations with a pointed denunciation of nationalism as a “betrayal of patriotism.”

Trump’s key targets are in the second ring of the G20. China, Russia and especially Saudi Arabia, whose delegation will be led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Already, Trump has thanked Riyadh for keeping oil prices low – and called for prices to go even lower. The heir-apparent to the Saudi throne also can’t be anything but delighted by the White House whitewashing his role in the assassination of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The world, not to mention at least a dozen potential Democratic candidates for president in 2020, will be watching for the breadth of any smile the two leaders might exchange.

The Saudi encounter, if there is one, could even take a back seat to the discussion between Trump and China’s Xi Jinping. Xi faces a looming threat of another round of tariffs on $262 billion worth of Chinese goods, with the rate jumping from 10 percent to 25 percent. Trump has hanging over his head the effects of a long-term trade freeze on the American stock markets and the broader economy. Xi has dug in; Trump no longer has the clear upper hand.

And then there is Russia’s Vladimir Putin. So far, every face-to-face meeting between the leaders has been viewed as a victory for Putin and a catastrophe for Trump. The best hope in Buenos Aires is that Trump somehow manages not to pay obeisance to this dictator. He must also understand the Pandora’s box he’s on the verge of opening by threatening a withdrawal from the INF missile agreement that was a key restraint on Putin’s dash toward an all but unassailable weapon system.

There’s also everyone else who’ll show up in Argentina – many with critical issues that Trump has dealt with in some fashion.

Trump is selling his new NAFTA pact, rebranded as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and expected to be signed in Buenos Aires, as “a win for U.S. workers.” But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who will both be at the G20, still have to sell the treaty to their legislatures back home. They could use some understanding.

Trump should also find a way to restore some grace to America’s relations with NATO-member Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who’s been determined to lay the blame for the Khashoggi murder at the feet of the Saudi crown prince. Nor should Trump ignore South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who’ll likely be central to any accord with the North.

Finally, there’s the outer circle – leaders of Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, South Africa, Senegal, Spain, Jamaica, Chile, the Netherlands, Brazil and Italy, all key players in their regions, the latter two representing a kind of neo-con nationalism that should be in Trump’s wheelhouse.

The weeks leading up to most G20 summits are generally occupied by teams of sherpas making careful preparations, setting the table for agreements to be signed and accords reached in carefully crafted language. Now, however, they face the prospect of Donald Trump re-loading the craps table with his own dice. The rest of the world needs to step up its game. (Reporting by David A. Andelman)</s>President Trump speaks during an interview with Washington Post reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

President Trump threatened Tuesday to cancel his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin at a global summit later this week because of Russia’s maritime clash with Ukraine, saying, “I don’t like that aggression.”

Russia captured three Ukrainian naval ships and their crews in the Black Sea on Sunday, an act that drew condemnation from the West and led to Ukraine preparing to impose martial law in 10 of the country’s 27 regions.

Asked during an interview Monday with The Washington Post whether he thinks Putin was within his rights to seize the Ukrainian ships, Trump said he was considering canceling his bilateral meeting with Putin scheduled for later this week.

“I am getting a report on that tonight and that will determine what happens at the meeting,” Trump said. “I’m getting a full report on that tonight. That will be very determinative. Maybe I won’t have the meeting. Maybe I won’t even have the meeting. We’re going to see, depending on what comes out tonight.”

The session is planned on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked about Trump’s comments on Wednesday, told reporters that the Trump-Putin meeting was still on.



National security adviser John Bolton speaks during a White House press briefing Tuesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

“The meeting has been finalized,” Peskov said. “We have no other information from our U.S. counterparts.”

Asked whether Russia’s aggression is a cause for concern to the American people, Trump said it is.

“I don’t like that aggression,” Trump said. “I don’t want that aggression at all. Absolutely. And by the way, Europe shouldn’t like that aggression. And Germany shouldn’t like that aggression.”

Trump went on to criticize Germany for not spending enough on its defenses as part of NATO.

“They’re absolutely not doing enough,” Trump said. “Germany. Absolutely not! Many of those countries are not doing enough toward NATO. They should be spending much more money.”



Russian President Vladimir Putin hands U.S. President Trump a World Cup soccer ball during a news conference on July 16 in Helsinki. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

The Trump administration has also been critical of Germany for a planned gas pipeline deal with Russia.

White House national security adviser John Bolton said Tuesday that Trump’s meeting with Putin would cover arms control and “security issues,” but he did not say whether Trump planned to challenge Putin over the naval incident. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley spoke for the administration when she condemned the incident Monday, Bolton said.

The Russian action appears to fit a pattern in which the Kremlin takes provocative action and then gauges international reaction before moving further. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine four years ago after a series of smaller steps that the West called provocations.

Trump has been under pressure to back out of the Putin meeting so as not to appear to endorse the latest action, which Haley had called unacceptable aggression.

James Jay Carafano, a conservative foreign policy adviser at the Heritage Foundation with close ties to the White House, was among those calling Monday for Trump to cancel the session in protest.

The meeting, if it happens, would come on the heels of Trump’s decision not to impose further punishment on Saudi Arabia or directly hold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to account for the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month.

Trump did not rule out a meeting with the crown prince at the Argentina session, although White House officials said there is nothing scheduled.</s>President Donald Trump no longer has any intention of meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he had announced, but will get together with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has had tense relations with Riyadh because of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump said last week that he would have a bilateral meeting with Bin Salman if both attended the meeting of G20 leaders, to be held in Buenos Aires this Friday and Saturday.</s>Russia’s deployment of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems in Crimea, announced on Wednesday, sounds worrying. The move comes days after Russian forces fired on Ukraine’s navy in the Kerch strait, prompting western condemnation and fears of a wider conflagration. At first glance, Vladimir Putin appears to have opted for defiance and escalation.

But first glances can be misleading. All parties to the Crimea-Donbass conflict have an interest in shaping outside perceptions, and not all is what it seems. In fact, Russia has stationed three S-400 missile battalions in Crimea since 2014, when it seized and illegally annexed the peninsula. It is now adding a fourth. It is not welcome news, but it is not necessarily a prelude to all-out war.

Opinions differ about the Russian president’s motives. Western analysts suggest he is intent on blockading the Azov Sea and eastern Ukraine’s industrial ports, thereby weakening Kiev economically and demonstrating Moscow’s superior control. Russia could also be reacting to Ukraine’s plan to build a new Azov naval base. This in turn may all be part of a long-term strategy to push Nato out of the Black Sea region.

On the other hand, Putin’s domestic approval ratings are falling, hit by a row over pensions and economic problems caused by western sanctions. When Putin ordered the Crimea invasion, his popularity surged to 80%, compared to 30% the year before. Maybe he is trying to pull the same trick again. If so, it’s a dangerous game.

The motives of Petro Poroshenko are likewise open to question. Ukraine’s president warned this week of “full-scale war”, claiming to have detected a recent buildup of Russian tanks at the border. In fact, Russia started relocating army units closer to Ukraine four years ago. This led over time to a “substantial expansion of Russia’s military presence”, according to Harvard’s Belfer Center. But it’s not new.

Is Poroshenko deliberately exaggerating the imminence of the Russian threat? He faces elections in March that he is tipped to lose. Opponents suggest his emphasis on Ukraine’s endangered security, and imposition of martial law, could compromise the democratic process. Sergii Leshchenko, an opposition MP, said Poroshenko’s re-election hopes rested on a nationalist tripod: “Language, faith, army.”

Western motives are also suspect. Pentagon hawks have an interest in stiffening Donald Trump’s support for Nato in general and Ukraine (an aspiring Nato member) in particular. The Kerch confrontation highlights Putin’s repeat offending, as they see it, in eastern Europe, the Baltic, the Balkans, Syria and Salisbury. The crisis could be used to draw the US and Europe closer together at a time of transatlantic rifts – and strengthen the case for western arms sales to Ukraine, even for direct intervention.

Trump is now under pressure to cancel his G20 meeting with Putin this weekend. In Washington, this is all mixed up with the FBI investigation into Trump’s past dealings with Russia and current appeasement of Putin. Reflecting these sensitivities, the White House has mostly steered clear of the Kerch row. The US so far has not responded substantively to European calls for new sanctions or Kiev’s pleas for help.

If Putin hoped to expose western divisions and exploit Trump’s ambivalence, he has succeeded. If Poroshenko, by launching what Moscow calls a provocation, wanted to boost his political fortunes, he may have succeeded too. Or maybe it is less complicated. Maybe excitable mid-level Russian commanders simply exceeded their authority. That’s believable. And that’s how wars start.
U.S. President Donald Trump says he may cancel his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during this week's 2018 G20 Buenos Aires summit because of Russia's maritime clash with Ukraine.