From Pepe Escobar:

Russophobia is a 24/7 industry, and all concerned, including its media vassals, remain absolutely livid with the “disgraceful” Trump-Putin presser…

Then, the clincher: the Russian president calls [Special Counsel] Robert Mueller’s ‘bluff’, offering to interrogate the Russians indicted for alleged election meddling in the US if Mueller makes an official request to Moscow. But in exchange, Russia would expect the US to question Americans on whether Moscow should face charges for illegal actions…

Putin knows that Mueller knows he will never be able to drag 12 Russian intelligence agents into a US courtroom…

However, there are reasons to expect at least minimal progress on three fronts in Helsinki: a solution for the Syria tragedy, an effort to limit nuclear weapons and save the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty signed in 1987 by Reagan and Gorbachev, and a positive drive to normalize US-Russia relations, away from Cold War 2.0…

The top adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, was in Moscow last week. The Moscow-Tehran entente cordiale seems unbreakable. In parallel, as Asia Times has learned, Bashar al-Assad has told Moscow he might even agree to Iran leaving Syria, but Israel would have to return the occupied Golan Heights. So, the status quo remains…

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have written a letter formally rejecting an appeal for carve-outs in finance, energy and healthcare by Germany, France and the UK…

Putin clearly sees Southwest Asia and Central and Eastern Europe as totally integrated. The Black Sea basin is where Russia intersects with Ukraine, Turkey, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Or, historically, where the former Russian, Ottoman and Habsburg empires converged.

A Greater Black Sea implies the geopolitical convergence of what’s happening in both Syria and Ukraine. That’s why for the Kremlin only an overall package matters. It’s not by accident that Washington identified these two nodes – destabilizing Damascus and turning the tables in Kiev – to cause problems for Moscow.

Putin sees a stable Syria and a stable Ukraine as essential to ease his burden in dealing with the Balkans and the Baltics. We’re back once again to that classic geopolitical staple, the Intermarium (“between the seas”). That’s the ultra-contested rimland from Estonia in the north to Bulgaria in the south – and to the Caucasus in the east. Once, that used to frame the clash between Germany and Russia. Now, that frames the clash between the US and Russia…

What is Putin’s ultimate goal: a quite close business and strategic relationship with Germany (German business is in favor)? Or some sort of entente cordiale with the US? EU diplomats in Brussels are openly discussing that underneath all the thunder and lightning, this is the holy of the holies…

While Trump firebombs this United States of Europe as an “unfair” competitor of the US, it’s essential to remember that it was the White House that asked for the Helsinki summit, not the Kremlin.

From Mulga Mumblebrain in the comments:

My favourite Groupthink lunacy, among many peddled by the fakestream presstitutes, is the one where Putin is responsible for fomenting social, economic, racial and sectarian discord in the USA. Without Putin’s Evil interference, Americans would be united in amity and fellow feeling, working together harmoniously to create a just and benevolent society. But then again the utter absurdity that the USA, the country responsible for more interference, from subversion, sabotage and monetary funding of traitorous elements up to sanctions and illegal aggression and genocide, than all other countries combined in history, by orders of magnitude, is complaining of, fake, ‘interference’ in its thoroughly corrupted system, is accepted without a single scintilla of dissent throughout the Western media sewer, is probably even more deranged. Take your pick.

From Larchmonter445:

Putin has the military (especially Southern Military District) on full ready alert. Massive tactical nuclear firepower, huge numbers of S-400 units, well over 100,000 men, major battle-tested Aerospace forces on the tarmacs ready to defend Crimea, the Black Sea and primed to confront the manpower NATO and US has placed at the borders.

Thus, the US can pull a trigger or talk. Putin and Trump began some talks.

Note how they both assured that each President’s military talks in Syria with the other’s military, all the time and generally very well.

Only the crazies want war.