Everything that happened at the talks in Istanbul over the past month boiled down to one game: the Ukrainians, together with the Europeans and some Republicans, were pushing Trump to recognize an obvious fact: Putin is leading him by the nose and it's time to impose tougher sanctions.

The Russians have been playing the game "Trump, don't impose sanctions" (the minimum program is to make it through the summer vacation and postpone this issue until the fall). Yesterday's conversation showed that Putin is winning this game so far .

The lion's share of the conversation was about Iran and Russia's possible assistance in a nuclear deal with Iran. And this is despite the fact that the Ayatollah de facto sent Trump away, saying that Iran would not give up uranium enrichment. Moreover, Russia no longer has that much influence on Tehran, and Putin's options are limited, to put it mildly.

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