Why Putin Must Be Thrilled With the Result of the Alaska Summit

Simon Shuster

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Vladimir Putin wanted a lot of things from his visit to Alaska. A ceasefire in Ukraine was not one of them.

Throughout the summer, his troops have been grinding out advances along the frontline, and they achieved a sudden breakthrough in the days before the Alaska summit. Putin’s main objective was to buy time for his troops to continue those advances, all while avoiding the “very severe consequences” that President Donald Trump promised to impose on the Russians if they refused to call a ceasefire.

It appears Putin succeeded on both counts. In his public statements on Friday night, Trump made clear he no longer plans to impose any economic pain on Russia. “Because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that,” he told Fox News after the summit. “I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don't have to think about that right now.”

In Trump’s understanding, two or three weeks is a malleable term, as the New York Times recently noted, “not a measurement of time so much as a placeholder.”

On the battlefield, however, it could mean the difference between holding off the Russians and allowing them to seize another region of Ukraine. The epicenter of the fighting in recent weeks has been the region of Donetsk, where Ukrainian troops were able to stop the latest Russian breakthrough.

The latest maps of the fighting indicate that the Kremlin remains determined to seize that region. Another few weeks of Russian infantry assaults could achieve that goal, allowing Putin to negotiate with the U.S. and Ukraine from a position of greater advantage. “Things at the front are going well for them,” a senior Ukrainian military officer tells TIME. “Slow but steady.”

These gains helped Putin negotiate in Alaska from a position of strength. Ahead of their talks, Trump indicated that he wants the warring sides to “swap” territories, with Ukraine giving away its own land in exchange for areas Russia has occupied. “They’ve occupied some very prime territory,” Trump said a few days before his summit with Putin. “We’re going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine.”