Four key things to watch for at the Trump-Putin summit

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland this week in one of the most anticipated summits in years.

The two leaders would likely discuss Russia's meddling in the 2016 US presidential election; how to wind down the war in Syria; Moscow's annexation of Crimea and broader incursion into Ukraine; and how to reduce the number of nuclear weapons around the world.

That is a lot to pack into a four-hour meeting on July 16 in Helsinki, and it is unclear what they will - or will not - agree to. But the question on everyone's mind is: Who is going to have the most success advancing their agenda?

Experts said that the Russian will likely outperform the American. "For Putin, Trump is a kind of a useful idiot," said Andrei Kolesnikov, a Russia specialist at the Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank. An unnamed US State Department official echoed that sentiment in an interview with The New Yorker: "Our guy here is like an amateur boxer going up against Muhammad Ali." Of course, it is possible t…