What was all that about?

You would think that after 10 days or so this would be old news. Old news in the sense that we would have a reasonable understanding of what happened, what was agreed and what its significance was. But not a bit of it – it’s all confusion and opaqueness. Subsequently Trump has made some suggestions about what might have been agreed only for The Kremlin to respond by putting the record straight and reiterating for the umpteenth time Russia’s Special Military Operation objectives: Ukraine not to join NATO, Ukraine to be de-nazified, Crimea and the Donetsk Oblasts to recognised as Russian and for meaningful negotiations with NATO about the overall security architecture in Europe.

So what was the summit all about?

Firstly there is the oddity of holding a summit like this in the first place. Heads of superpowers normally meet only when the hard yards of a negotiated settlement have been hammered out by the two teams of diplomats. The US and Russia have had no formal diplomatic engagement since before 2022, although this summit was preceded by a visit to the Kremlin by US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump stated that he saw one of the purposes of the summit was to find out what the Russian position was …….

The speculation in Western Media was that Russia needed a ceasefire as it was sustaining high casualty figures in its slow progress across Eastern Ukraine and was becoming tired of the conflict. This flew in the face of the clear statements from The Kremlin that a ceasefire would not be acceptable as this would simply allow The West to re-arm Ukraine so that it could go again in the future. It also continues the misrepresentation of Russian military strategy in the war – one of attrition. It is not interested in territory per se (Crimea and The Donbas now excepted) but in forcing a settlement through the dismantling of Ukraine’s military – an objective it is excelling in. Russia doesn’t want a ceasefire (why should it, it’s winning?), it wants a comprehensive peace agreement that will stop a return to war in the future and normalise relations with Europe and NATO. It is possible that Witkoff hinted that such a discussion would be possible.

Trump, on the other hand, needed a summit to provide a diversion from the challenges he is facing politically and economically on the domestic front. He needed ‘a win’ (or at least to show that he was able to act on the international stage) in order to bolster falling opinion polls in the run up to the mid term elections. He needed to reassure his MAGA base that he was still committed to US withdrawal from foreign wars.

Putin may have chosen to attend so as not to let Russia be presented in Western Media as ‘against peace’ and he may have seen some potential future leverage on Trump through ‘helping him out’ with his domestic difficulties. Trump may have felt confident that in a face-to-face meeting he could charm / strong arm Putin into concessions.

One thing both leaders wanted, it seemed, was to prevent (or at least delay) the threatened imposition of secondary tariffs on countries trading with Russia. Putin was under pressure from his BRICS colleagues to delay this as long as possible to give them extra time to prepare and Trump had been advised that these tariffs would tank the US economy.

The Summit itself was cut short, side meetings were cancelled, the following press conference took no questions and Trump finished it abruptly. This did not look good for the chances of a breakthrough, although Trump tried to put a positive spin on it.

He was positive that future meetings would be productive and that Putin and Zelenski would meet. He conceded that a long-term peace that addressed underlying issues would be more useful than a frozen conflict and an immediate ceasefire. He hinted that territory swops might be possible.

Putin made no substantial concessions and re-iterated Russia’s conditions for peace. He was able to delay the imposition of secondary sanctions, disputed any agreement re territory swops and any imminent meeting with Zelenski.

On the face of it Putin (unsurprisingly) seemed to have come out best – he made no concessions whilst Trump did. The Western Media didn’t seem to know what to make of it – but anyone could see the panic on the faces of European (and UK) leaders – they sensed they were being cut adrift – an impression reinforced by their subsequent treatment when meeting Trump in The Oval Office.

Alternative commentators had a variety of views. The Duran saw the potential for peace based on the 2022 Istanbul draft agreement between Russia and Ukraine, whilst Mark Sleboda cautioned that whilst Trump had clearly been overawed by Putin and had stepped back from making threats, once the US deep state had got hold of him again he would quickly revert to a more aggressive stance that sought to prolong the war in order to weaken Russia, but now at the expense of the UK and Europe.

George Beebe (ex CIA Russian Analysis Director) made it clear that the UK and Europe would be expected to step up to the plate and expand their military industrial complexes (and buy US weaponry) in order to provide credible security guarantees to what ever will be left of Ukraine.

But still everyone is guessing. The Russians are holding their line, so no ambiguity there, whilst Trump, as he does, is communicating dis-information, contradictory ideas and sometimes frankly nonsense – either because he can’t help himself, or he has to throw bones to the various constituents of his power base, or simply to create confusion. Who knows?!

Then along comes Alistair Crooke (former UK diplomat) in discussion with Nima of Dialogue Works (link below) with a different take on the matter:

He suggests that the Summit was psychologically symbolic. Putin was greeted on the tarmac in Anchorage by Trump – indicating that Russia was to be accorded respect as a Great Power – as an equal. This is huge step given that Russia has been treated like a pariah by The West ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is also instructive to compare this treatment to that given to the UK and European leaders at their subsequent meeting with Trump in The White House. Many have commented that in waiting to be invited into the Oval Office they looked like naughty schoolboys and girls outside the headmaster’s office.

Alistair allows himself to imagine a possible off the record discussion between Trump and Putin that went something like this (these are largely my words based on his comments):

Trump – ‘I know you won’t accept a ceasefire. There are too many complications for this matter to be resolved diplomatically. The US is withdrawing, leaving the UK and Europeans to pick up the ball. You do what you have to do to force the issue to a conclusion and I’ll do my best to manage Congress, Senate, and the Deep State’.

Putin – ‘OK  …. if you can’t meet or even begin to negotiate over our conditions, but I need a long-term peace deal – and then perhaps we can look at joint exploration and exploitation of the wealth of minerals, oil, gas etc in the Artic’.

Such an ‘understanding’ would mean that the war in Ukraine will go on until Russia feels it has won and in a position to dictate terms. UK and Europe will find themselves in even more of an impossible position – tasked with supplying security guarantees to Ukraine without the financial or military resources to do so, in the context of collapsing economies and with a political elite still talking about facing down a non-existent Russian threat to the rest of Europe. It will be hard to unpick decades of ‘Russia = bad’ propaganda to even begin to confront the reality of the situation. This will be beyond the ability of our current political elites and they know this. They are staring at the end of their political careers – but more importantly, for us, are the political upheavals that will follow from their demise and the system that has produced them.

— X —

I provide this link for reference only. Although Alistair is an insightful commentator with a wealth of diplomatic experience to draw from, he can, at times be a bit rambling – and the middle section of this interview is particularly rambling as he talks about Trump being a ‘mythical figure’ with all the power that goes with that. I don’t doubt his historical and literary accuracy in this (I too studied the making of myth narratives during my first degree) – but it seems a bit tangential to the issues at hand!