Putin trying to take the spotlight from Trump over North Korea

Vladimir Putin is probably seething over Trump's "successes". The one thing the Russian leader does not want is for Trump to score a major foreign policy victory. If Kim Jong-un does actually start to denuclearise in the face of sanctions pressure from Washington it will be such a triumph for the US president that poor old Putin will get pushed to one side, an irrelevance. Which is why he is jumping the gun and trying to set up his own summit with the North Korean leader who, by the way, seems to be getting, shall we say, fuller-faced every time his picture is taken. Too many carbohydrates I suspect. Putin hates to be left out and if North Korea and the US do forge a history-changing deal that brings real peace to the Korean Peninsula, he will want to grab something from it to benefit Russia. Kim, I'm sure, will agree to see Putin if only because it will give him a nice trip to Moscow, plenty of caviar blinis and a few days of media glamour. But is it really in Kim's interest to be friends with Putin when his focus should be on keeping Trump on board and making sure he doesn't piss off Xi Zinping. The Chinese leader by now must be bewildered, bemused and battered by Trump's contradictory China policy which can be summed as: make love to Zinping, then bash him on the head. Whatever Kim thinks of Putin, he might as well play the field, but what exactly is the Russian president up to? What can he offer Kim that Trump can't offer? Nothing comes to mind. But what can Kim offer Putin, now that's a different matter. If North Korea opens up and becomes part of the international community - and that's still a huge IF - Putin will want a slice of the potential trade action. So a grand summit in Moscow, with all the Kremlin trimmings might just persuade Kim to look to Russia for future economic deals, and that would certainly infuriate Trump. So a double whammy for the Russian president. Never take your eyes off Putin because he is always plotting and planning.