Before their meeting in Alaska, U.S. President Donald Trump wanted his historic meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to succeed, and Europeans already knew that the only way to achieve this was to force Europe and Ukraine to accept Putin’s victory. The Europeans would have to agree to Russia’s victory in Ukraine and enable it to do so (by refraining from supplying weapons). Otherwise, Trump’s position would be embarrassed in front of the world, as he had been telling them that he had a deal to end the war. The meeting ended, and the result\u2014according to American politicians and commentators\u2014was that Trump once again fell into Putin’s imperial political games. Trump himself has proven\u2014since his first term\u2014that he doesn’t understand how easily empires can manipulate him.<\/p>\n
Putin left the meeting with the green light to continue his war against Ukraine indefinitely without any additional sanctions, pending negotiations on a broader agreement.<\/p>\n
Hours before the meeting, Trump said that if he failed to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine, “he will not be happy,” threatening “serious consequences.” But just hours later, he left Alaska without a ceasefire and without imposing any consequences on Putin. He even declared himself extremely pleased with the outcomes of the meeting, describing it as a “10 out of 10.”<\/p>\n
According to an analysis published by Peter Baker in The New York Times<\/a><\/span>, even in the turbulent records of Trump’s presidency, the Alaska summit stands out as a historic reversal. He abandoned the primary goal for which he had come, and the next day revealed that he would no longer seek an immediate ceasefire, but instead adopted Putin’s preferred approach: negotiating a comprehensive peace agreement that would require Ukraine to cede territory.<\/p>\n Ivo Daalder, the former US ambassador to NATO under Obama, expressed a similar conclusion: “He was duped again… After all the promises of a ceasefire, severe economic consequences, and disappointment, it only took two minutes on the red carpet and ten minutes in the car for Putin to play Trump again. What a sad scene.”<\/p>\n Trump’s allies focused on his plans for a three-way meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said, “I’ve never felt more hopeful that this war will end honorably and justly than I do now.”<\/p>\n The ceasefire that Trump abandoned in Alaska was a key goal weeks ago. He threatened to impose new economic sanctions if Russia didn’t stop the war within 50 days, then pushed the deadline to last Friday. The result: no ceasefire, no deadline, and no sanctions plan.<\/p>\n Perhaps it is astonishing how easily Putin succeeded in turning Trump against himself. It is not unlikely that Putin used a cunning and convincing method\u2014one that even someone as politically inept as Trump could fall for\u2014to argue that a “ceasefire” is a trivial and deceptive concept in diplomacy, and that the great peacemakers are moving toward a comprehensive agreement that would end the entire war and eliminate the need for a ceasefire! Indeed, Trump wrote, “It was agreed that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to move directly towards a peace agreement, not just a ceasefire, which often fails.”<\/p>\n The recent Alaska summit sparked angry reactions. Some critics compared it to the 1938 Munich Conference, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ceded parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler as part of a policy of appeasement. Not surprisingly, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the Alaska summit as “one of the most disgusting episodes in the miserable history of international diplomacy.”<\/p>\n In another analysis by CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh<\/a><\/span>, the meeting resulted in two immediate gains for Ukraine:<\/p>\n First, Trump and Putin did not sign a reckless, detail-poor, and potentially lucrative peace agreement regarding real estate for Moscow, as some feared. Quite the opposite\u2014no agreement was reached.<\/p>\n The second gain for Ukraine was that Putin’s intransigence\u2014despite all of Trump’s flattery\u2014was clearly evident. Trump appeared sullen: no lunch, no press questions, and no immediate acceptance of Putin’s invitation to Moscow. In the end, Trump seemed dissatisfied, and perhaps Putin was mistaken to make him feel that way.<\/p>\n