After returning from Alaska on Saturday, Vladimir Putin told top officials assembled in the Kremlin that his summit with Donald Trump had “brought us closer to the necessary solutions”.
Those solutions, Putin stressed, involve Ukraine’s capitulation to the maximalist demands that prompted his 2022 invasion. “Settling these root causes [for the war] must be the foundation for a settlement,” he said.
The extraordinary meeting at Anchorage’s Elmendorf Air Force base has ended Putin’s pariah status and brought Washington’s stance on the war closer to Moscow’s.
And Putin did not need to budge an inch.
Trump is not authorized to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine… full stop. Anything that happened in Alaska was solely for show and for Trump to get his updated marching orders from Putin.
Something about Trump not being Ukrainian or the Ukrainian president or part of their government.
It was to put pressure on Ukraine and Europe and to make them look like warmongers, when muskovites are reasonable and just want to end this war.
It is amazing that this optic even exists, let alone that it is popular with millions of people.
Propaganda works. And it works especially well on stupid people.
Trump and Putin both know how to use the phone. This shit was 100% theater. Of the absurd.