From Republic.ru, Aug. 18, 2025, https://republic.ru/posts/116251. Complete text:
Editors’ Note. – The Putin-Trump summit in Anchorage failed to produce a ceasefire. Instead, the US president emerged from the meeting with a new idea: He dropped his demand of an immediate ceasefire and is now talking about a “final peace deal.” For Andrei Okun this looks more like brainwashing than diplomacy.
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This was Vladimir Putin’s first visit to the US in a decade. The Russian president met with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska. The whole world watched the meeting with bated breath, hoping for a breakthrough and, possibly, a ceasefire deal for Ukraine. But nothing of the sort happened. In fact, I don’t think Putin went to see Trump in order to find a way to end the so-called “special military operation.” I think the actual purpose was for Putin to flip his most ambitious target [Trump] in front of the whole world. And to some degree, he succeeded.
A lot of rumors have been circulating over the past few months as to where exactly Putin and Trump might meet. Most analysts, both in Russia and in the West, agreed that Beijing looked like the most likely place. Everybody expected the two presidents to meet there in early September, when China has a military parade to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.
It seemed almost like the two presidents were drawn to each other. Long phone conversations, exchanging compliments. Fake news stories about the need to talk face-to-face. In short, a meeting had been brewing for a long time. But things changed when Trump suddenly cut his 50-day ultimatum short, threatening to slap buyers of Russian oil with sanctions immediately unless Putin agreed to a ceasefire.
Trump remarked two weeks ago that Russia was running out of time to work out a compromise. Putin took a pause and answered a few days later. He used his trip to Valaam Island with Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko as a backdrop for his response. “In order to resolve this matter peacefully, a detailed discussion would be necessary. And you don’t do it in public. You negotiate in a quiet environment.”
So, Trump provided a quiet environment, inviting his Russian counterpart to Alaska. He received Vladimir Putin as a friend; as a dear, important guest; as someone you really want to make comfortable. It was very obvious that the Russian president enjoyed a much warmer reception than the Ukrainian president when he came to the White House in February [see Vol. 77, No. 9‑10, pp. 3‑6].
Nobody shielded Vladimir Zelensky from US reporters at the time. On the contrary, they put him in front of cameras and publicly berated him. Trump’s meeting with Putin on Aug. 15 was entirely different. The Russian president was only paraded in front of the media for a brief photo op. There was no Q&A session either before the talks or after the final statements. Putin did not have to face tough questions from the media.
Instead, he used sign language to communicate with the press. When a journalist asked him if he would stop killing civilians, he shrugged his shoulders and pointed to his ear, indicating that he did not hear the question. At another point, he cupped his hands around his mouth, pretending that he was trying to communicate something over all the noise in the room.
An important detail: The US authorities certainly played a role in keeping international media away from Putin. The US president agreed to shield his guest from tough questions, although he could have easily made things awkward for him – which is what he did with Zelensky in the winter. This was exactly what Putin wanted – negotiating in a quiet environment. But this was certainly not the first concession Trump made.
The red carpet was rolled out for Putin, and Trump applauded him as Putin disembarked from his plane. The Russian president was greeted with a flyover, and then he rode in the same Cadillac as the US president. Every little detail was there to show Putin how welcome he was in America and how the hosts were willing to bend over backward to please him.
In addition, Putin was allowed to speak first at the joint press conference, which was a clear violation of the standard protocol. Usually, when a US president receives a foreign leader, he speaks first at the joint press conference. The meeting in Alaska, for some reason, was a glaring exception to the rule. Also, the US media pointed out that Putin spoke over eight minutes, whereas Trump’s speech lasted only three minutes.
We don’t know why the Russian president was given the honor of speaking first, but Trump looked dejected. The usually talkative and self-confident American leader gave his guest the initiative. No foreign leader has ever been able to pull this off, but Putin managed to shut Trump up on his home turf.
All this sounds like an ode to the Russian president, but it was the US that set the stage for such laudatory remarks. The current administration did all it could to make Putin comfortable and let him project his influence outside Russia. All this looks so weird and so unreal that one can’t help wondering if some of the things that people used to joke about may be true after all.
Trump seemed genuinely impressed, or even influenced, after his meeting with Putin. We don’t know exactly what the two leaders discussed behind closed doors, but it seems it was during this tête-à-tête that the Russian president found the key to his American counterpart’s behavior.
Curiously, just a day before Trump’s meeting with Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “He (Trump – Ed.) was very clear that the US wants to achieve a ceasefire at the Alaska summit.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, for his part, insisted that negotiations can only start after a ceasefire is agreed upon.
But Trump suddenly pulled a U-turn after his private conversation with Putin. He dropped the ceasefire demand – although for a long time the US, Ukraine and their European allies have all insisted on it as a prerequisite for talks. Instead, Trump adopted the Russian narrative. The US president said it made more sense to discuss a final peace deal than a ceasefire – which is exactly what Vladimir Putin wanted. It is no wonder that headlines in the international media described this as a betrayal. For instance, the Financial Timesquoted an anonymous high-ranking Ukrainian official as denouncing Trump’s about-face after his meeting with Putin as a “stab in the back” to Ukraine.
There are only two possible explanations: Either the Russian president is exceptionally persuasive with his US counterpart, or Donald Trump is extraordinarily susceptible when it comes to Putin. In this regard, I am reminded of something former [acting] FBI director Andrew McCabe said in an interview with CBS six years ago – namely, that on the question of whether North Korea had missiles capable of reaching the US mainland, Trump chose to believe Putin over his own intelligence agencies.
Thus, the recent meeting of the two presidents in Alaska looked more like a recruitment operation than normal diplomatic negotiations. I am certain that Putin does not want peace, because his dovish remarks are often followed by brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities. That’s why I say that the purpose of his trip to Alaska was not to negotiate a ceasefire. His goal was to persuade Trump that it is Europe and the Zelensky regime who stand in the way of peace, not Russia. Putin will pretend that he wants peace for as long as he can in order to secure a better position through military action and gain some time.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev gave a surprisingly accurate summary of the meeting. For a long time, we have only been hearing crazy rants from him, but after the Putin-Trump summit he posted two tweets that hit the nail on the head. First, he wrote, “This meeting has shown that talks are possible without any preconditions and without suspending the special military operation [in Ukraine].” In other words, Russia can pretend that it wants peace and stall for time while continuing to fight. And second, he wrote: “Both sides (Russia and the US – Ed.) made it clear that the outcome of the future talks will depend on the position taken by Kiev and Europe, and that it is up to them to decide whether hostilities continue.” In other words, Medvedev is basically saying that, should the war continue, it won’t be the aggressor’s fault; Russia has successfully shifted the blame onto those who are helping Ukraine defend itself.
According to Axios, Putin offered to stop his offensive in Zaporozhye and Kherson Provinces if the Ukrainian forces withdrew from the Donetsk Basin. It seems that the offer made Trump happy, because he took it as a chance to make a quick and easy “deal.” Forcing Ukraine to give up the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics, especially considering that Ukraine does not control most of these territories right now, should be an easy task for the American “daddy,” which is what NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte calls Trump.
Thus, Putin went back to Russia, leaving his extremely gullible and impressionable counterpart with the job of conducting diplomacy. Now Trump is going to put pressure on Ukraine in an effort to end the conflict as soon as possible. Putin can sit back and watch how his newly recruited “asset” does his dirty work for him.