The Russia-US summit set to take place in Alaska on Aug. 15 could yield any result, but markets are full of expectations.
The Moscow Exchange index grew by nearly 7% over the last week, while international oil traders stayed bearish on the grounds that Russian oil could legally flood back onto the market – putting downward pressure on prices -- in the event that a ceasefire could be achieved at the first meeting of US and Russian presidents since 2021.
Russian oil companies themselves are closely watching the meeting, but they remain cautious and don’t expect the lifting of sanctions anytime soon under any scenario.
Officially, Moscow doesn't want to nurture heightened expectations, but Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin's envoy on investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries and head of Russia's Direct Investment Fund, wrote on social network X that "the dialogue between [Vladimir] Putin and [Donald] Trump will bring hope, peace, and global security."
Positions on ending the war in Ukraine remain far apart, however, and there is a high probability that the talks could fail, analysts note. But what could count as a successful outcome for Putin and Trump would be if the meeting resulted in some agreement on the normalization of diplomatic relations and the resumption of a business dialogue between the two countries.
