Lawrence Freedman
It is fair to say that the Alaska summit was not burdened by high expectations. Its origins gave ample grounds for anxiety. The US had been on course to punish Russian intransigence with new sanctions. Instead Putin was rewarded by a high-profile summit. As I wrote in my previous post the Trump administration bamboozled itself into thinking that a breakthrough was on the cards. This was because amateur negotiator Steve Witkoff had misunderstood what was on offer from Moscow. Trump spoke enthusiastically about land swaps as a way forward, although Putin had never suggested any interest in such a deal.
Those gloomiest about the likely outcome worried that Putin would persuade Trump to agree a one-sided deal which he would then impose on Zelenskyy. That did not happen. Trump said there had been progress but no deal. In addition he spoke to Zelenskyy after the summit, with European leaders, and the Ukrainian leader spoke positively about the conversation afterwards. He will now be visiting Trump in Washington.
That was the glass half full aspect of the summit. The glass half empty aspect was Putin’s red carpet treatment, the imagery that allowed the Russian media to claim that Putin had been rescued from international isolation, and the fact that he was allowed to frame the results as soon as the meeting concluded, speaking before Trump. He presented the conversation, which was shorter than anticipated and did not even reach lunch, as a great success and a boost to US-Russian friendship, and presented himself as a seeker after peace, repeating his standard formulation:
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