Vladimir Putin was the real winner of the Alaska summit

Vladimir Putin couldn’t stop smiling at the spectacle awaiting him in Anchorage yesterday, as American soldiers knelt to adjust a red carpet rolled out from his presidential plane. Donald Trump applauded as the Russian President walked towards him under the roar of fighter jets and stepped onto American soil for the first time in a decade. The pair shook hands for the cameras, ignoring a journalist who shouted, “Mr. Putin, will you stop killing civilians?” before riding off together in the presidential limo to the summit site. A royal reception, not a ceasefire, was what the international pariah had come out of his bunker for.

Putin emerged from international isolation and was welcomed as a king rather than as an indicted war criminal

After almost three hours of negotiations, Trump left Alaska with neither peace nor a deal. The lunch between the two delegations was canceled. The brief press conference allowed no questions from the media. A seemingly energetic Putin gave an eight-minute speech on the history of Alaska while Trump stared blankly into the void. On Ukraine, Putin called it a “brotherly nation,” hypocritically claiming that “everything that’s happening is a tragedy for us, a terrible wound.” He then repeated the need to eliminate the “root causes” of the war, signaling that Russia’s demands for Ukraine’s capitulation have not shifted.

Yet there still seemed to be some sort of an agreement taking shape behind closed doors. Putin said he expected Kyiv and European capitals “will perceive it constructively and won’t throw a wrench in the works.” Trump said that “many points were agreed” and announced later in a Fox News interview that now it was up to Volodymyr Zelensky to “get it done.” Trump added that Ukraine would have to make territorial concessions, though Kyiv may not agree because Joe Biden “handed out money like it was candy.” Asked what advice he would give to Zelensky, Trump said: “Make a deal. Russia is a very big power. And they [the Ukrainians] are not.”

Putin left the summit having achieved the goals he came for. He emerged from international isolation and was welcomed as a king rather than as an indicted war criminal. He left with plenty of photos alongside Trump for the Kremlin propaganda wing to talk about and contrast with pictures of Trump lecturing a humiliated Zelensky in the Oval Office in February. Russia also avoided further sanctions despite rejecting a ceasefire, with Trump promising once again that he might think about it in another “two or three weeks.”

As for Trump, he has nothing to show for the meeting except for being laughed at in Russia and at home. Had there been progress, he would already be boasting about it, but he knows too little about the conflict he is trying to fix, and the stick he carried was too short to make Putin care. The summit labeled “Pursuing Peace” failed to achieve even a partial ceasefire. No trilateral meeting with Zelensky has been agreed. The war will grind on, soldiers will keep dying and Russia will continue bombing Ukrainian cities. All Trump has to offer is his refrain to Ukraine: make a deal – whatever that means.