President Trump has canceled his G20 meeting with Vladimir Putin.

President Trump and Melania Trump board Air Force One on the way to the G20 conference. AP.

President Donald Trump has canceled his meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 conference in response to Russia's actions against Ukraine in the Sea of Azov. AP. Trump cited the fact that Russia has not released the ships and crewmen captured in the naval skirmish between Russia and Ukraine. President Trump has tried to improve the strained relationship between Russia and America, so the move is seen as surprising to many. 

My Comment:

I'm not sure what to think about this. I think there are good argument for canceling this meeting and good arguments for keeping it on. It seems as though Russia is surprised by this move but they really shouldn't be. With the actions of Russia in the news and Trump under constant attack from an incredibly biased media that will attack him no matter what he does, Trump has little choice but to cancel the meeting, even without the arguments for and against. 

Ignoring the domestic pressure from the media, was Trump right to do this? There is an argument for it. At the very least, Russia was being pretty stupid to provoke a conflict with Ukraine right now. They claimed security concerns, which may have been somewhat valid but it was still a huge overreaction. Capturing three ships and detaining the crews is way over the top. Had they just had a standoff, or simply let the Ukrainians through an filed some kind of protest, they would have been much better off. 

Clearly the Russians needed to pay some kind of price for their actions. If they had released the ships or at the very least, the crew, then things might be different. But since that didn't happen then I think Putin deserved this at the very least. I don't think it needs to go beyond this but you never know what is going to happen with US-Russia relations. 

Of course there are reasons for this meeting to go on though as well. For one thing Ukraine's actions are pretty despicable as well. Though the Russians overreacted, it's also true that if Ukraine hadn't tried to run the blockade for basically no reason none of this would have happened. Canceling this meeting is essentially rewarding them for their bad behavior. 

And there are way more important things with Russia going on right now than Ukraine. We need to make sure that Russia and America coordinate in Syria as ISIS is still a threat there. Plus our cooperation is needed to make sure that there isn't some kind of dumb incident between our jets and theirs. Both countries are better off in general if tensions can be ratcheted down.

All that being said, I have to say that Russia made a huge mistake with their Ukraine stunt. Though they could have had some response to what Ukraine did in the Kerch Strait, it didn't have to be as heavy handed as it was. Putin was counting on this meeting to improve relations and now that isn't going to happen. A huge unforced error for Russia and Vladimir Putin.