Best of 2025 - Taking a win from Alaska |
On 15 August, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Alaska, the first head-of-state meeting between the two countries since the Ukraine War began.
A repost from 29 August 2025
It was widely panned as a “shameful” and “vomit-inducing” episode where Putin apparently came out on top.
Trump himself certainly didn’t help things. In front of Putin, he continued insisting that a “Russia hoax” prevented him from building better relations with Moscow during his first term, was pleased that Putin backed him up on the argument that “the war would have never happened under Trump”, and even entertained Putin’s views on “ mail-in ballot fraud”, effectively bashing his domestic political opponents in front of an adversary.
None of this amounted to a real concession to Putin; while embarrassing for many Americans, they simply recycled Trump’s classic talking points. The true concession was in holding the meeting itself, which effectively ended Putin’s diplomatic isolation in the West, with apparently nothing to show for it.
Indeed, there was no agreement on a ceasefire, no peace deal, not even a clear roadmap. Trump asserted that agreement had been reached on “most of the points,” with only “a few left”,........