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.