Summit Puts Putin Back On The Global Stage And Trump Echoes A Kremlin Position
HuffPost
In a summit meeting marked by red carpets, handshakes and military flyovers, President Vladimir Putin made his first trip to the United States in a decade and was greeted warmly by President Donald Trump.
In Alaska, President Vladimir Putin walked on a red carpet, shook hands and exchanged smiles with his American counterpart. Donald Trump ended the summit praising their relationship and calling Russia “a big power ... No. 2 in the world,” albeit admitting they didn’t reach a deal on ending the war in Ukraine.
By Saturday morning Moscow time, Trump appeared to have abandoned the idea of a ceasefire as a step toward peace — something he and Ukraine had pushed for months -– in favor of pursuing a full-fledged “Peace Agreement” to end the war, echoing a long-held Kremlin position. The “severe consequences” he threatened against Moscow for continuing hostilities were nowhere in sight. On Ukraine’s battlefields, Russian troops slowly grinded on, with time on their side.
The hastily arranged Alaska summit “produced nothing for Mr. Trump and gave Mr. Putin most of what he was looking for,” said Laurie Bristow, a former British ambassador to Russia.
The summit spectacle
Putin’s visit to Alaska was his first to the United States in 10 years and his first to a Western country since invading Ukraine in 2022 and plunging U.S.-Russia relations to the lowest point since the Cold War. Crippling sanctions followed, along with efforts to shun Russia on the global stage.
