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Alaska, Trump comes away empty-handed: Putin emerges stronger from the summit

The summit between the two leaders ends without agreement on Ukraine. For analysts and the US opposition, the only winner is the Russian president.

The face-to-face meeting in Alaska between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin ended without an agreement for a ceasefire in Ukraine. The eagerly awaited summit, which the US president hoped would be a diplomatic turning point, instead left the stage to a beaming Putin, ready to capitalize on his image as a leader welcomed back to the United States.

Awaiting Volodymyr Zelensky’s reaction, the Kyiv Independent branded the summit “disgusting, shameful, ultimately useless.” According to the newspaper, Putin has already won on the political front: no longer isolated, but “accepted and respected by the leader of the free world.”

For many US observers, the outcome is clear. John Bolton, former national security adviser, told CNN: “Trump didn’t lose, but Putin clearly won. He avoided new sanctions, he didn’t have to commit to a ceasefire, there is no next meeting scheduled, and Zelensky was not involved. Trump achieved very little.“ Bolton also pointed out that the US president appeared ”tired” rather than disappointed.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of “rolling out the red carpet for an authoritarian dictator,” granting him international legitimacy without anything in return. “Not diplomacy, just theater,” he commented.

According to Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian analyst at Carnegie, the summit did not produce any concrete results: “It was a reduced bilateral meeting with minimal outcomes. Trump did not give in completely, but the main effect was the emotional impact that Putin manages to exert on him.” For the expert, however, this effect “fades quickly and does not affect the real content of the negotiations.”

Putin emerged stronger from the summit, gaining global visibility and an international stage. Trump, on the other hand, appears weakened in the eyes of part of the American press and opposition, unable to translate the meeting into tangible results.

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