 "Alaska summit: Putin wins hands down as Trump gifts him time")
It was the typical high-voltage Donald Trump pomp and power show at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday.
A B-2 Spirit Bomber escorted by four F-35 Lightnings conducted a flyover as a desperate Trump tried to persuade Vladimir Putin to reciprocate his unrequited love. They shook hands on the red carpet and later posed on a blue stage emblazoned with “ALASKA 2025” amid parked F-22 Raptors.
However, hours before, Putin, in his subtle yet powerful style, had already delivered his message loud and clear: Make USSR Great Again (MUGA).
Harking back to the Soviet Union’s superpower days of global dominance during the Cold War, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov arrived at a hotel where Trump and Putin later met sporting an unusual dress breaking the diplomatic protocol. A black jacket over a white sweatshirt emblazoned with “CCCP”—Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—and light blue denims.
Lavrov’s dress wasn’t merely symbolic; it conveyed two messages.
First, Putin’s longing for the USSR’s lost greatness and anger at its disintegration, which the Russian president had termed “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”.
Second, Russia’s immense confidence in being back in the diplomatic fold after being declared a pariah by the West since Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The stage was set. The performers were ready.
Trump was accompanied by Marco Rubio (secretary of state), John Ratcliffe (CIA director), Steve Witkoff (special envoy to Ukraine and the Middle East). Scott Bessent (treasury secretary) and Howard Lutnick (commerce secretary).
Impact Shorts
More ShortsPutin’s entourage comprised Lavrov, Yuri Ushakov (foreign policy adviser), Andrei Belousov (defence minister), Kirill Dmitriev (Russian Direct Investment Fund chief) and Anton Siluanov (finance minister).
The audience expected to be spellbound by a scintillating performance by the brilliant cast.
However, the most-anticipated drama was a big flop for the American audience and international media.
Neither Trump nor Putin took questions from a quote-famished media as reporters jostled to get even one comment. Both made their statements and left the media disappointed.
Antagonist Putin turns protagonist
The Russian president came, he saw and he conquered.
Putin was brimming with confidence from the moment he agreed to take a ride on The Beast, Trump’s armoured limousine, at the latter’s request.
He was a virtuoso, an artiste who had crafted and polished his skills in dealing with five American presidents—Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Trump (six times in his first term).After the summit ended, Putin was the first to address the media as Trump stood silent by his side.
Putin got what he eagerly sought—that too on American soil. Despite being shunned by the West, especially the Joe Biden administration, and having an ICC arrest warrant for committing war crimes in Ukraine, his performance was excellent.
First, Putin, whose troops occupy around 18 per cent of Ukraine, including Crimea, 70 per cent of Donetsk and almost all of Luhansk (Donbas) and two-thirds of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, came out with the biggest gain.
Putin has time till November-end to capture more Ukrainian territory and to negotiate with both Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from a more powerful position. By December, Ukraine’s harsh winter would set in, making fighting extremely difficult.
The Russian advance in eastern Ukraine has been incremental but continues. Putin has around three months to turn these slow gains into strategic wins.
Moreover, neither Trump nor Putin announced the venue and date of another meeting. Putin wants to freeze the gains and the conquered areas in Russia’s fold and Zelensky to drop his goal of joining NATO. The Ukrainian president rejects both demands.
Before and after the summit, Trump said that a tri-lateral meeting between Putin, Zelensky and him would be the best option to reach peace. The Alaska summit was held months after Trump showed a willingness to meet Putin.
Convincing Putin and Zelensky to meet face-to-face will require intensive diplomatic efforts and hectic parleys between the three countries. That will allow Putin to buy more time to advance further inside Ukraine.
Zelensky was quick to highlight how Putin will use the opportunity. “… we anticipate that in the coming days the Russian Army may try to increase pressure and strikes against Ukrainian positions in order to create more favourable political circumstances for talks with global actors”, he wrote on Telegram.
Second, Putin re-established diplomatic ties with the US amid a grand welcome in a country that led Nato against him without the Russian leader taking one step back.
“The past period was very difficult for bilateral relations. And, let’s be honest. They have slid to the lowest point since the Cold War. … Obviously, sooner or later, it was necessary to correct the situation—to move from confrontation to dialogue. And in this regard, a personal meeting of the heads of the two states was really overdue,” he said with Trump by his side.
Third, the much-touted summit hinged on a territorial swap between Russia and Ukraine—rejected by Zelensky—to reach a peace deal and end Europe’s bloodiest war since WWII. That’s what Trump had been chiming before the summit to the shock of European allies. However, during a virtual call with European leaders later, he said that any territorial concession should be decided by Ukraine. There was no discussion about a territorial swap at the meeting.
Fourth, Putin didn’t even agree to a ceasefire—forget a peace deal. Earlier too, he never agreed to a ceasefire and continued with the onslaught despite several attempts by Trump and Witkoff, who had met Putin four times in over two months.
Despite praising Trump and his administration for facilitating “the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict”, Putin didn’t indicate ending the conflict.
Fifth, he again blamed Ukraine, as did Trump during Zelensky’s White House visit in February, for starting the war and repeated how Russia’s security is under threat. “I have said more than once that for Russia, the events in Ukraine are associated with fundamental threats to our national security.”
On the other hand, Putin, using his trademark tactics, terming Ukrainians “brotherly no matter how strange that may sound in today’s conditions”. “We have the same roots and everything that is happening for us is a tragedy and a great pain.”
Putin put the ball in Trump’s court while conflating Russia’s “legitimate concerns” and the “root causes of the crisis” with a ceasefire and Ukraine’s security. “Therefore, our country is sincerely interested in putting an end to this. But at the same time, we are convinced that for the Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, all the root causes of the crisis must be eliminated.”
Putin was referring to Nato’s eastward expansion and Ukraine’s ambition to be part of the military bloc.
Though Ukraine’s security “must, without a doubt, be ensured” and “I would like to hope that the understanding we have reached will allow us to get closer to that goal and open the way to peace in Ukraine”, Russia’s “legitimate concerns must be taken into account, and a fair balance in the security sphere in Europe and the world as a whole must be restored”. Putin said.
Sixth, he massaged Trump’s ego without conceding anything. “Overall, we have established a very good business-like and trusting contact with President Trump,” he said knowing well how Trump gloats in self-praise and all the more when patted on the back by an adversary like him.
“And I have every reason to believe that by moving along this path, we can—the quicker the better—reach an end to the conflict in Ukraine,” Putin said without mentioning a timeline to end the war or even a ceasefire.
Putin’s best shot was slamming Joe Biden and praising Trump for saying that the war would have never happened if he were the US president.
“And in the end, I would like to add one more thing. I’d like to remind you that in 2022, during the last contact with the previous administration, I tried to convince my previous American colleague that the situation should not be brought to the point of no return when it would come to hostilities and accept it quite directly back then—that is a big mistake,” he said of Biden without naming him.
In the biggest boost to the US president’s ego, he said that if Trump were the president in 2022, the war wouldn’t have started, as claimed by him during the 2024 US election campaign.
“Today, when President Trump is saying that if he were the president back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that,” Putin said.
He even invited Trump to Moscow for another meeting—if it is held at all—in a rare public use of English. “Next time in Moscow?” he said as the joint presser ended triggering an expected reaction from Trump, who said, “Ooh! That’s an interesting one. I don’t know. I’ll get a little heat on that one, but I could see it possibly happening. Thank you very much, Vladimir.”
Trump was never in control of the plot
Trump looked visibly exhausted.
The American president expected to mesmerise the audience—but his performance was below average. There was no ceasefire or peace deal, contrary to his boastful claims of one in the offing, as Russia continued to attack Ukraine during the around-three-hour meeting.
Inviting Putin to the US was Trump’s first mistake. The cringeworthy display of military power play and posing with Putin, flanked by Raptors, was the second mistake.
The big, hollow claims and threats made by Trump in the months and days leading up to the summit were his third and biggest blundTrump is all bluster and no bite whenever he confronts an equally dominating and powerful adversary like Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump wrote the Alaska summit script, but Putin controlled the plot. The Russian leader pulled the strings and his American counterpart danced all along—even in the months before the summit.
Trump, like his predecessors, has failed miserably to read the former KGB agent, despite meeting him five times and talking to him over the phone nine times in his first presidency, seven calls after office and another six calls in his second term.
Russian leaders have always outsmarted their American counterparts. Two months after America’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, John F Kennedy met Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a summit in Vienna in 1961. In 1962, Khrushchev deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba, jolting Kennedy and bringing the world to the precipice of Armageddon.
“Kennedy allowed himself to be bullied by Khrushchev [in Vienna] and he regretted it,” according to award-winning journalist Evan Thomas, who authored the book Being Nixon: A Man Divided. “Some scholars think that Khrushchev felt like he could push Kennedy around. And that made him, perhaps, more likely to put the missiles into Cuba.”
Trump failed like Kennedy.
From his campaign trail’s hollow claim to end the war in 24 hours if he returned to power to cajoling and coercing Putin, Trump’s blustering narrative of how he could influence the Russian leader to sign a peace deal fell flat and exposed his flaws.
When Putin rejected his ceasefire offers, Trump threatened sanctions. The Russian president was unrelenting. Soon, Trump’s frustration with him was public. He was visibly “very angry” and “pissed off” at the “bullshit” thrown by “crazy” Putin.
Finally, he gave Putin a 50-day deadline to end the war or face more sanctions and secondary sanctions on top buyers of Russian crude oil (China and India). He failed. Then Trump reduced the deadline to 10-12 days. He failed again.
Trump had also boasted that he would know exactly in “the first two minutes” of the meeting whether a deal could be made”, and also vowed to “walk” away from the table if the talks remained inconclusive.
In the end, it boiled down to a no-show with Trump’s blow-hot-and-cold attitude resulting in a mockery.
Trump’s “two-minute” boast fizzled out as the meeting lasted for more than two-and-a-half hours—neither did he walk away from the unproductive talks as pledged earlier.
In his statement, shorter than that of Putin’s, Trump’s usual strategy of fake claims regarding the war and his one-sided bromance with Putin were on display.
“…I believe we had a very productive meeting. There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say,” he said despite Putin not agreeing to even a ceasefire.
“There are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there. We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there,” he added.
Aware that he had achieved nothing but zilch, Trump admitted that there were “a couple of big ones [points] that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway. So, there’s no deal until there’s a deal”.
Sensing that he would be pilloried by the media for failing to squeeze even one ounce of concession from Putin, Trump conveniently put the onus on NATO and Zelensky. “It’s ultimately up to them. They’re going to have to agree with what Marco and Steve.”
Finally, he was back to his admiration for Putin, who has always manipulated him.
Claiming that Putin and he “really made some great progress today”, Trump said, “I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with
President Putin—with Vladimir. We had many, many tough meetings, good meetings.”To please Putin further, Trump reiterated that the Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election was a “hoax”.
“We were interfered with by the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. It made it a little bit tougher to deal with, but he [Putin] understood it. I think he’s probably seen things like that during the course of his career. He’s seen—he’s seen it all. But we had to put up with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax.”
Trump’s statement was a redux of his meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July 2108 when he sided with Russia against US intelligence agencies and denied any election interference.
In another feat of imagination, Trump concluded by saying that both were on the same page about stopping the killing of Ukrainians.
“We had some good meetings over the years, right? … Let’s do the most productive one right now. We’re going to stop, really, 5, 6, 7 thousand, 1000s of people a week from being killed, and President Putin wants to see that as much as I do.”
Post-summit comments show who’s winner
A few days before the summit, the White House was careful not to portray it as a Trump show that could guarantee a ceasefire or a peace deal.
However, Trump was back to his boisterous ways claiming that Putin wants a peace deal, not to occupy the whole of Ukraine, because of their rapport.
“I think he [Putin] has wanted the whole thing,” he told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s radio show. “But because of a certain relationship that he has with me running this country, I believe now he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal. He’s going to make a deal. I think he’s going to.”
Later, he doubled down on his claim at the White House. “I think President Putin will make peace.”
Trump’s claim sounded very stale. In February, he made the same claim. “I mean, I know him very well. Yeah, I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn’t.”
The Alaska summit proved that neither Trump knows Putin nor can guarantee a ceasefire or peace.
Putin didn’t concede anything while Trump gave away everything.
The post-summit comments proved how Putin had outmanoeuvred Trump.
In his first comments after the summit, all Putin had to say was a few words of praise for Trump and how they “talked about a possible resolution of the Ukrainian crisis on a fair basis”.
“The visit was timely and very useful. We discussed practically all areas of our cooperation,” he said without providing any details about the points of cooperation, a ceasefire or peace.
“We naturally respect the position of the US administration, which sees the need for an immediate end to hostilities, and we would also like to see this happen. We would like to move towards resolving all issues by peaceful means.
No indication of a ceasefire, an end to the conflict or even a trilateral meeting with Trump and Zelensky.
On the other hand, Trump granted Putin’s wish.
“I wouldn’t be thrilled if I didn’t get it [a deal],” he told Fox News on the way to Alaska. “Everyone says, ‘You’re not going to get a ceasefire. It’ll take place in the second meeting.’ But I’m not going to be happy with that.”
Several hours later, Trump made a predictable U-turn realising that he had returned empty-handed—no ceasefire but only a peace deal.
In the event, there was no agreement on a ceasefire, and Trump downplayed its importance in a post on Truth Social as he returned to Washington.
“It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often do not hold up,” he posted on Truth Social after returning to Washington.
It’s obvious that Putin didn’t agree to a ceasefire and called for a peace deal so that he could buy more time to continue his assault and seize more Ukrainian territory.
That’s the reason both presidents refused to interact with the media at Anchorage. If Trump had revealed what transpired at the meeting and how he agreed to Putin’s insistence on a peace deal, not a ceasefire, he would have faced a barrage of questions.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia and a former president, summed it up precisely how Putin got what he wished for without preconditions.
“Important fact. The meeting has demonstrated that negotiations are possible without preconditions while the Special Military Operation continues,” he wrote.
The writer is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. He tweets as @FightTheBigots. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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