Finland’s capital, Helsinki, will be the focus of world attention on Monday when it will host the summit of Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Finnish President Soli Neneisto will receive his guests in the 19th-century presidential palace overlooking the market square. Later, they will hold a private bilateral meeting and will be joined afterward by members of their respective delegations before holding a joint press conference in the afternoon. The private bilateral meeting and the "chemistry" in which it appears may play a role in determining the success or failure of the summit, but the failure or success will also be linked to the ability of the two leaders to bridge the gap in their views. This requires bargaining and making concessions as it usually happens in the buying and selling markets. The market square, which is located few meters away from the presidential palace, where they have met twice before but on the sidelines of meetings, might remind the two leaders that buying and selling require swaps and concessions in which the seller and buyer get what they want. The Finnish presidential palace has hosted a Russian-US summit before. In 1990, it brought together US President George Bush and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. When that summit was held back then, Gorbachevs Soviet Union was weak and its republics were disintegrating, but Russia is now in a different situation in which Putin is trying to revive his countrys glory and restore it to the same position as before. However, regardless of the divergence or rapprochement that will emerge at the Helsinki summit between Putin and Trump, the bet is that the summit will redraw a new course of US-Russian relations, focusing on areas where cooperation is possible. On the summit’s eve, the Elysee Palace announced that President Emmanuel Macron, who will attend the final of the World Cup between his national team and the Croatian team, will hold a political summit with President Putin in Moscow. Both parties, according to the Elysee, will discuss the file of the Syrian crisis, which is believed to be also a pivotal subject in the Trump – Putin summit on Monday. In regards to the Syrian file, the Russian president is said to attend Helsinki summit in a strong position since his military intervention has managed to completely reverse the balance of power. With the direct Russian cover (and with the support of a mix of Iranian-controlled militias), the regimes forces managed to recover most of the countrys main areas.