WASHINGTON, August 10. /TASS/. The United States is likely to have started accepting Russia's arguments regarding the root causes of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the principles of its possible settlement, Charles Freeman, a retired high-ranking and merited US diplomat and defense official, told TASS.

Commenting on the planned summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Alaska on August 15, Freeman expressed his hope that Washington now started to understand better today Moscow's stance regarding the Ukrainian crisis.

"I hoped that, buoyed by the prospect of a summit meeting, President Trump might finally be able to understand what President Putin means when he stresses the need to address the ‘root causes’ of the war," Freeman said in an interview with TASS. "A ceasefire can be part of a negotiated outcome to the Ukraine war but cannot be an end in itself."

Over the past few decades, Freeman has served as a head of one of the Washington consulting companies, and also appeared on pages of the English-language press as a foreign policy analyst. In the previous past, Freeman occupied senior posts with the US Department of State and in the Pentagon. In 1993-1994, he was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

"It appears that the US side has now at last begun to listen to the Russian side and to understand that, to end the war, it must discuss the issues Russia raised in its December 2021 demand for negotiations," the expert continued. "I take the remark by Secretary of State Rubio that the recent talks by Mr. Witkoff with President Putin had clarified the Russian position to indicate that there has been just such an advance in the Trump administration's grasp of the prerequisites for peace."

"It appears that President Trump now understands that there can be no ceasefire in Ukraine until an appropriate context for one has been negotiated," Freeman pointed out.

The US retired politician also said he believed that Trump’s upcoming visit with Putin in Alaska would boost the American president’s ego.

"It will expand Trump's ego. One hopes the aperture will then accommodate some understanding of what this war is all about," Freeman added.

Late this week, the US President Trump announced an intention to meet personally with his Russian counterpart in Alaska on August 15. Then, the plans for these talks were confirmed by Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov.

According to Ushakov, Putin and Trump will "undoubtedly focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis." The Kremlin expects the next meeting between the two presidents to take place on Russian soil, Ushakov emphasized.

A meeting between Putin and Trump in Alaska next week comes in the wake of the Russian president’s meeting with US Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin earlier this week.

On August 6, Putin received US Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin. After the meeting, Ushakov said that Witkoff had received some signals on the Ukrainian issue, and in turn, reciprocal signals had been received from US President Donald Trump.

A White House official told reporters on Wednesday that the meeting between Putin and Witkoff, in the opinion of the Washington administration, went well, and Russia demonstrated interest in continuing cooperation with the United States.

Germany’s Bild later reported that Trump held a telephone call with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz informing him that "the conversation between Witkoff and Putin was more productive than expected."

The meeting between Putin and Witkoff was also attended by Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Special Presidential Envoy for Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries.

Witkoff arrived in Moscow at about 7:00 a.m. Moscow time (4:00 a.m. GMT) on Wednesday, where he was met at Vnukovo Airport by Dmitriev. About an hour later, the two took a walk through Zaryadye Park in central Moscow.