These days, the Russian army has a hard time scoring any major successes. Its soldiers face a grinding slog in Ukraine, dying by the hundreds, sometimes to advance just a few hundred metres or not at all.
On the diplomatic front, however, the situation is different. Russian President Vladimir Putin secured a major diplomatic victory by holding a summit with United States President Donald Trump.
At Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, it was all bonhomie. Trump clapped as Putin made his way onto the red carpet for a handshake before Trump escorted him into his presidential limo as the Russian leader smiled like a Cheshire cat. The two came away from their nearly three-hour meeting without much to say. Both spoke of agreement on a host of matters. Putin invited Trump to Moscow, who demurred – for now.
Little has leaked thus far on exactly what Putin and Trump discussed. The Russian leader sought to suggest in his remarks to the media that the talks were on his terms, bringing up Russia’s security concerns and praising his US counterpart for trying to “understand the history” of the conflict.
According to Russia’s ambassador to the US, Alexander Darchiev, apart from Ukraine, there were some concrete bilateral issues discussed. He claimed two major diplomatic questions were raised: “the return of six Russian diplomatic properties that were de facto confiscated” during former US President Joe Biden’s administration and “the restoration of direct air traffic” between Russia and the US.
Trump for his part appeared to drop the demand for a ceasefire in Ukraine – something he had publicly called for before the summit. Instead, he agreed to take the Kremlin’s demand for a full settlement of the conflict rather than a ceasefire to Ukraine and its European allies. Later, he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the European Union and Ukraine agreed with him that “the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement”.
Although Trump seemed to take the Russian position on a ceasefire, the worst possible outcome of the summit was still avoided. The meeting did not turn into a “new Munich”, where Trump would appease Putin just like the French and British leaders appeased Adolf Hitler in a meeting in the German city in 1938 by agreeing to a German takeover of part of Czechoslovakia. The US president did not accede to Russian territorial claims.
That said, for Putin, the summit was a tactical win because it broadcast to the world that the US president himself was casting off the pariah status the Kremlin had earned for its unilateral invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the subsequent war crimes it has overseen. The Russian president was treated like the leader of a “great power” – a status he has long been obsessed with returning Russia to – who had to be negotiated with, on his terms.
So where does all this leave Ukraine and its European allies?
Trump is clearly unwilling to change his position on Ukraine. He admires Putin – his personality and his governing style – immensely.
But Brussels, London, and Kyiv cannot give up on him. The truth is that continued US support is indispensable to Ukraine maintaining its defence. Europe has moved to pick up more of the burden of funding since Trump was inaugurated for his second term, but its military capabilities and defence industry supply chains cannot replace those of the US anytime soon, even if they increase investments exponentially.
Trump wants peace in name and cares nought about the details. For Kyiv, the detail is its very survival, and for the rest of Europe, Ukraine’s fate shapes the potential that it could be the next target of Putin’s aggression in his would-be geopolitically rebalanced world.
That does not mean that there is no way to turn Trump. There is – Ukraine and Europe can use a page or two out of Putin’s playbook in dealing with the US president.
Trump clearly likes his ego to be stroked, which is what Putin repeatedly did in his remarks to the media, echoing, for example, Trump’s claim that if he had been president in 2022, the war in Ukraine would not have happened.
Continuing diplomatic engagement is the way forward, as is seeking to change the frame in which Trump sees the Ukrainian conflict.
The US president cares more about the future of US energy exports, US competition with China, its challenge to US economic dominance and the exploitation of the Arctic than he does about Ukraine. It was Trump’s choice to host the meeting in Alaska, after all, and his obsession with Greenland – so seemingly strange to European allies of the US – makes far more sense in this context.
The key is to persuade the US president that Russia is a threat to Washington’s interests in all of these matters.
An easing of sanctions could see Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects flood into the market and depress the price for US LNG exports. Putin has reshaped Russia’s economy to be dependent on minerals exports to China, fuelling its ability to compete economically thanks to cheap inputs. Putin has also repeatedly sought to push Beijing to be more assertive in economic competition by calling on it to dump the dollar and push new trade and finance frameworks that exclude the US. And Russia is hoping to dominate the Arctic by expanding its Arctic fleet with new nuclear-powered icebreakers and submarines.
For Putin, his war in Ukraine has never been just about the dividing lines in the Donbas or his claimed injustices from the Soviet Union’s collapse. It is a war to reshape the world. On the other hand, Trump sees the war as a distraction and a drag on his own efforts to reshape the world.
Only if Kyiv and the wider West understand Trump’s approach could they persuade him what is at stake. They must focus on how Putin hurts American interests and Trump’s perception thereof. If they fail to do so, while Alaska may have proven to be no “new Munich”, its legacy could be that of one of a “new Yalta” in which Europe’s future is to be shaped by new exclusive spheres of influence drawn by Moscow and Washington.
