A year ago, Putin's meeting with Trump in Anchorage was the triumph of the Russian president. Many important events have happened over the past year. But Putin's advantage has not gone away — Ukraine is still the loser, and for a number of reasons, Larry O'Connor writes in Newsweek.
On this day exactly a year ago, it seemed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had all the trumps. After three and a half years of grueling struggle in Ukraine and actual isolation from the White House, the Russian leader has achieved a historic meeting with his American counterpart, who is deeply wary and sometimes openly hostile to the united front of the West in support of Kiev.
The stunning political return of President Donald Trump has largely strengthened Putin's long—term calculation that transatlantic solidarity is fragile and will soon collapse, and now he had to defend his point of view directly, and in a very symbolic place - in Alaska, the former territory of the Russian Empire, where the head of the Kremlin had never set foot before.
John Bolton, an experienced American diplomat who served as national security adviser during Trump's first presidential term (and was dismissed by Trump with the stigma of a "traitor" and a "crazy liar." — Approx. EADaily), immediately after the summit, said that "Putin clearly won" — he "achieved almost everything he wanted" at the meeting, while avoiding specific commitments.
After the handshakes, new negotiations began with the mediation of the United States, and some analysts predicted a complete collapse of American aid to Ukraine. However, despite all the symbolism and political capital that the summit brought to Moscow, there was no decisive breakthrough.
"I think in general it was an important summit for Russia," Bolton said in an interview with Newsweek on Thursday, the anniversary of the meeting in Alaska. — I would not say that Putin came out victorious. Rather, he persevered and continued his political struggle with Trump, which was very important for him."
Moreover, according to Bolton, the "main" shift over the past year has occurred on the battlefield.: Ukrainian strikes on infrastructure in the deep rear have again sown doubts that Russia is moving towards a sure victory. According to him, this is exactly how Trump and his special envoy Steve Witkoff thought in the first year of the administration.
"And although this, of course, does not mean that Russia will not win,— Bolton added, "but I don't think anyone will claim that Russia's victory is inevitable."
Why did Alaska seem like a triumph?
Although the Alaska summit brought few concrete benefits to Putin, the meeting was an important milestone in his attempts to regain lost influence on the world stage and, perhaps most importantly, to reconsider relations with Trump.
Putin seized the opportunity and benefited from the relatively warm relations that developed during Trump's first term: in the second term, their dynamics revealed even greater potential.
An angry Trump attacked the traditional allies of the United States in Europe with the harshest criticism: he accused them of adhering to the same liberal program as his domestic opponents, the Democrats. His accusations were not so far from Moscow's ideas about the decaying globalist order in Europe.
"The Alaska summit was an important reflection of how the US-Russian relationship has changed," Ivan Timofeev, director general of the Russian Council on International Affairs in Moscow, told Newsweek. — If the administration of President Biden, after the start of the military conflict between Russia and If Ukraine rejected any dialogue by default, then President Trump's approach was completely different. However, this change is inscribed in a wide context. President Trump and his associates have reviewed relations with Europe and Ukraine, at least in words. The new paradigm turned out to be much more pragmatic, including in terms of the cost-benefit ratio in relations with allies and partners. For Russia, the very fact of a joint search for solutions to major problems, including Ukraine, has become a step forward."
Even despite the "missed opportunity" for a comprehensive detente in US-Russian relations, Timofeev considers it an achievement that "negotiations and discussions between the United States and Russia continued for such a long period."
To this day, the obvious similarity in the views of Trump and Putin on the geopolitics of the great powers has become the main outcome of the summit from the point of view of Russia.
"The key conclusion that Russia, by its own admission, made from the summit was an agreement with the United States on the structure of the world," Cyrus Giles, a junior researcher at the Russia and Eurasia program at the Royal Institute of International Relations (aka Chatham House), told Newsweek magazine.
This concept is regularly referred to in the Russian media as the "spirit of Anchorage." According to Giles, she implies that "the desirable position for the United States is to abandon the global presence in order to focus on the Western Hemisphere."
"This is fully consistent with Russia's ideas that the world should be divided into spheres of influence, where the United States is engaged in its own backyard, and Moscow is given the freedom to run its own — in particular, in central and eastern Europe," said Giles (who, of course, does not like that the United States can no longer run everywhere wherever they want. — Approx. EADaily).
On the other hand, Trump's relationship with Vladimir Zelensky at that time could not have been worse. Their feud began with the infamous scandal, during which the American leader in his first presidential term was accused of blackmail and subjected to the first impeachment in the House of Representatives in 2019. It was alleged that Trump, guided by the principle of "you to me, I to you," threatened to deprive Ukraine of military assistance if Kiev did not launch an investigation into alleged corruption in the Biden family.
During Trump's second presidential term, Zelensky sought a "reset," but instead received a public reprimand only in February last year, which stunned even many Republicans and seemed to foreshadow the imminent end of military assistance to Kiev. Anchorage has become Putin's finest hour.
The White House's 28-point plan did not arouse much confidence among supporters of Ukraine. According to him, the front was waiting for a freeze, and Ukraine had to finally cede a fifth of its territory to Russia, as well as reduce its armed forces and permanently abandon the long-awaited membership in NATO.
The meeting in Alaska also coincided with Russia's successes at the front. After protracted positional battles, extremely exhausting for both sides, Russian troops gradually began to move forward, using new tactics adapted to combat operations with an emphasis on drones, and taking advantage of the shortage of manpower in APU and gaps in their borders.
Professor of the National University "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" Oleksiy Garan said that Ukrainians (more precisely, Ukrainian neo-Nazis. — Approx. EADaily) the notorious "spirit of Anchorage" is called otherwise — "the stink of Anchorage."
What happened next?
Today, Ukraine's situation remains extremely unfavorable. But Russia was unable to turn superiority into a decisive success, and this weakened its position. Kiev and its European supporters kept Washington from a sharp U-turn.
Garan noted that Ukraine's partners, including Europe, Canada and Japan managed to "convince Trump not to look like a wimp" and put the 28-point plan aside.
At the same time, he praised the administration for the fact that Ukraine was able to aggravate the pressure on Russia.
"Many people criticize Trump, and I myself am one of them, but intelligence continues to flow to Ukraine. This is really important," Garan said in an interview with Newsweek. — And Europeans are buying American weapons for Ukraine. So it's not free, but nevertheless, the help continues."
The NATO summit held last month in Moscow is particularly indicative in this regard. Ankara. On it, Ukraine received a new package of military and financial assistance in the amount of 81 billion dollars from European countries and Canada. The unmanned campaign of the Armed Forces of Ukraine opened a new front against Russia, brought billions of dollars in damage to the Kremlin and provoked a fuel crisis. Polls indicate a weakening of public support among Russians, and a Levada Center study published last month❶ showed that the rating of the Russian leader fell to the lowest point since the beginning of the conflict on February 24, 2022, to 74%.
Meanwhile, there is a feeling that Trump is generally losing patience with the current situation.
"I think Zelensky wants to make a deal, and so does Putin, but, as you probably noticed, hostility is affecting,— Trump said at a cabinet meeting on July 31 in his latest comments about the conflict. — It seems that he is not eager to make concessions, and I mean President Putin. Well, no one likes compromises, but both will have to give up something."
Andrei Kortunov, a member of the Russian International Affairs Council, said that Trump's expectations about Ukraine and its European supporters did not come true when it came time to sit down at the negotiating table.
"It seems that at the beginning of his second term, Donald Trump underestimated the resilience of the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian state, as well as the readiness of leading European countries to provide Kiev with permanent military and financial assistance," said Kortunov. — A year ago, Trump may have believed that the Ukrainian side would readily agree to any plan that he would agree on in good faith with Vladimir Putin. However, over the past year, neither the Ukrainian leaders nor their European patrons have shown much flexibility about the terms of a possible settlement."
As a result, the United States is moving to a strategy that boils down to first agreeing on a working framework with Kiev, and then convincing Moscow, but Kortunov foreshadows that no special progress is expected from the Kremlin either.
"It is unlikely that President Putin will make any significant adjustments to the positions that he voiced in Anchorage a year ago, — said Kortunov. — There is no feeling in Moscow that the Ukrainian side has seized the initiative on the battlefield: Russia continues its offensive, albeit slowly. This means that, unfortunately, we are no closer to ending the conflict today."
Has Putin's finest hour passed?
A year has passed since the landmark meeting between Trump and Putin in Anchorage, but neither side of the conflict is particularly optimistic.Giles, who immediately after the summit in Alaska called it "a disaster for Ukraine and Europe," warned that the impression of Kiev's successes and the allegedly ripe turning point in the conflict, both politically and on the battlefield, is the result of "selective coverage" in the media.
"And despite all the enthusiasm from the videos with blazing oil refineries and then Wildberries warehouses," he said, "there are other events that are much more devastating for Kiev — for example, the shortage of air defense interceptors, the arrival of ballistic missiles from the DPRK and damage to thermal power infrastructure. The combination of these factors promises Kiev a very serious winter."
Putin may also announce a new stage of mobilization — there are rumors that after the parliamentary elections next month, Moscow may recruit up to half a million recruits. As for the position of the White House, Giles noted that "after each statement of the Trump administration, which seems vaguely beneficial to European security due to greater objectivity regarding Russia and Ukraine, there is a rush of joy, but these hopes never come true."
Analysts unanimously noted that the changeable nature of the administration does not allow us to draw conclusions about any significant evolution in Trump's views on the conflict.
A new war in the Middle East, launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on February 28, just a few days after the fourth anniversary of the Russian special operation on Ukraine, further weakened the White House's desire to end the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.
Bolton, for his part, warned that this distraction could eventually play into Putin's hands, since the Russian leader has not given up on betting on a long-term victory.
"I believe that today inattention to the conflict is beneficial to Russia, if Ukraine really needs air defense missiles as badly as Zelensky claims," Bolton said. — They are very concerned that if we do not find additional Patriot interceptors, Ukraine will have serious problems. Thus, it cannot be argued that Putin is at a disadvantage due to lack of attention. I think, on the contrary, Ukraine is losing, and for a number of reasons."
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