"Sickening. Shameful. And in the end, useless"

 

Sickening. Shameful. And in the end, useless. Those were the words that came to mind when we watched the Alaska Summit unfold. On our screens, a blood-soaked dictator and war criminal received a royal welcome in the land of the free — as his attack drones headed for [Ukrainian] cities.

In the lead-up to the meeting in Alaska, U.S. President Donald Trump declared he wanted a “ceasefire today” and that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would face “severe consequences” if he didn't go for it.

Yet after a 2.5-hour closed-door meeting, Trump and Putin emerged to share… nothing. “Progress” was made and some “understanding” reached, but the two didn’t come to an agreement on “the most significant point” — clearly, Ukraine.

Trump didn’t get what he wanted. But Putin? He sure did. From the moment he stepped off the plane on U.S. soil, the Russian dictator was beaming. No longer an international pariah, he was finally getting accepted – and respected — by the leader of the free world. Trump’s predecessor once called Putin a murderer; Trump offered him a king’s welcome.

Trump greeted Putin with a red carpet, warm handshakes, a flyover of U.S. bombers, and a backseat limo ride. The chummy display stood in stark contrast to Trump’s hostile reception of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office six months ago. Ukraine’s president endured a public shaming. Russia’s was pampered. Both episodes were disgraceful.

Trump seemed to believe that a warm meeting could appease Putin and make a ceasefire more likely. But there’s a lesson Trump still hasn’t learned: The Russian leader doesn’t really make deals — he takes. He takes what is offered to him and then takes some more — he keeps taking until stopped by force. That is the Russian art of the deal.

Trump fails to grasp that Putin isn’t transactional about Ukraine — he is messianic. He wants Ukraine for Russia, period. For Putin and his inner circle, Ukraine’s independence is an accident, and they are correcting it.

The Russian delegation made no effort to hide their mockery of the talks. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Alaska wearing a USSR sweatshirt — bluntly asserting Russia’s claim on Ukraine. Kremlin journalists wrote about how they were served chicken Kyiv on the government plane to Alaska — a not-so-subtle hint that Ukraine was “cooked.” The Russians clearly never took the “peace talks” seriously.

And there was another reason behind Putin’s grin in Alaska. The Russian dictator was gloating because of how unsettling the meeting was for all U.S. allies, far beyond Ukraine. It sent a discomfiting signal to the viewers across the pond. And strategically, undermining the transatlantic alliance is an even more important Russian objective than taking control of Ukraine.

Putin returns from the Alaska Summit with a win — but not a sweeping victory he could have had. If the two presidents failed to reach an agreement, it means that, despite all the chumminess on display, Trump didn’t approve of Russia’s absurd demands for Ukraine — demands that amount to Kyiv’s capitulation.

Trump said he hopes to see Putin again soon. If the U.S. president doesn’t want to hand the next meeting to Russia as well, he needs to let Ukraine join the table. And he must position himself as an ally of Ukraine, not as a referee between two fighting sides.

Only then might we avoid another scene in which the leader of the free world indulges a bloody dictator — in the name of 340 million Americans. After all, agreements with Russia don’t live long. But the images of the U.S. military honor guards kneeling to roll out the red carpet for a murderer? Those will last. And no one will remember this meeting longer — or more vividly — than Ukrainians.

-The Kyiv Independent