Putin scored three big wins over Trump in Anchorage, but the talks aren’t over yet

Imagine sitting in a cafe, a bunker, or a government office in Ukraine on Friday, watching those first scenes in Anchorage.

There was Russian President Vladimir Putin, the man who twice ordered invasions of his country and has been indicted for war crimes, taking his first steps on American soil in nearly a decade… on a red carpet.

There were the two leaders—Putin and President Donald Trump—shaking hands and smiling as U.S. warplanes, including a B-2 bomber, flew overhead in formation. Then they boarded “The Beast,” the U.S. presidential limousine, for a private ride to the summit venue.

It was a reception tailored for a close friend, not a war criminal, and it must have seemed to Ukrainians their worst nightmare—a complete betrayal. Surely the Russian dictator had already won.

But if these were the first signs, what followed (or didn’t follow) should have calmed the anxiety—somewhat. The talks ended hours earlier than expected. There was no joint press conference. While the two leaders tried to put a positive spin on their talks, there was, as Trump himself put it, no “deal.”

“Many points were agreed upon,” Trump said, “and very little remains,” but the rosy, festive tone of the arrival ceremony was gone. “No deal until there’s a deal.”

Putin, for his part, showed no sign of changing course, instead returning to complaints about “fundamental threats to our security” and “the need to eliminate all the main causes of conflict,” which since February 2022 have been emblematic of Putin’s idea that his invasion was justified by grievances and misleading claims about Russia’s true place in the world.

Who won?

So, who “won” in Anchorage? We may not know for some time. But the day held some surprises.

Putin came to Alaska seeking to deepen the rift between the United States and its allies. He brought his top economic aides to the summit, hoping to discuss a broader US-Russian agenda, including normalizing diplomatic and trade relations. But this broader dialogue did not take place, and Trump said it would not take place “until we end the war.”

Still, Putin can claim three major “victories” from his visit to Alaska.

The first was Trump’s agreement to abandon ceasefire talks and move directly to negotiations for a broader settlement. This reversed a long-standing Putin demand and represented a radical shift in the position of Trump, who had said this week that a ceasefire must come first, and that Putin would face “serious consequences” if he did not agree to it.

Putin’s second victory is what did not happen. He left Anchorage without any “consequences”—i.e., the secondary sanctions Trump had threatened, and without setting new deadlines for the ceasefire.

Perhaps the most important “victory” was the sheen of that lavish reception. It was a significant form of global revitalization for the Russian leader. Russian state television broadcast inspiring reports of the arrival ceremony. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who has made strident anti-American statements over the years, described Friday’s summit as “calm, free of ultimatums and threats,” and said Trump had “given up on escalating pressure on Russia.”

When “No Deal” Is Good News

For Ukraine, “no deal” wasn’t a bad outcome.

The run-up to the Anchorage summit saw sustained Ukrainian diplomatic efforts to ensure Trump didn’t cede his country to Putin. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined a virtual summit of European leaders on Wednesday, chaired by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, after which Merz vaguely stated that Trump “largely shared” the Europeans’ views. This left everyone wondering what “largely” meant—and the Anchorage summit provided some answers. Trump abandoned the Europeans’ ceasefire-first approach, but he remained committed to another core principle: Ukraine’s voice must be heard.

The good news for Kyiv is that no forced “land swap” or any other Trump-Putin plan for Alaska has been announced. Trump called Zelensky on his way home—a conversation the Ukrainian leader described as “long and substantive”—and invited him to the White House on Monday. This was also a positive development. As for Trump himself, the clear conclusion is that he did not get the ceasefire he expected. It’s hard to say otherwise, in part because his administration has yet to articulate a policy or strategy toward Ukraine or Russia beyond a desire for peace and improved U.S.-Russian relations. “The meeting was excellent,” Trump told Sean Hannity after the summit, declining to assess its substance.

Ukrainians and their supporters will continue to worry that Trump wants a comprehensive global peace agreement and that he won’t hesitate to pamper a war criminal to get it. So far, the man who repeatedly promised to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine (the latter “within 24 hours”) has made little progress in his efforts, despite a series of concessions to Moscow.

Ukrainians’ fears were not allayed before the Anchorage summit, when Trump praised Russia’s victories over Napoleon and Hitler, then called and praised Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, perhaps Putin’s closest ally.

But in the end, when the “deal or no deal” moment arrived in Anchorage, Trump refused. At least for now. Perhaps the warnings of Ukrainian and other European leaders were heeded. Or perhaps this was a repeat of Trump’s rare diatribe last month: “We get a lot of bullshit from Putin, if you want to know the truth,” he said at the time. Did Trump call Putin “bulkheaded” in Alaska? It’s doubtful. But we don’t know yet.

What’s next?

Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House on Monday—and the atmosphere surrounding it and the statements that followed—will reveal much about the path forward. Trump may wash his hands of the war if both leaders, especially Putin, frustrate his efforts. If Trump chooses to remain engaged, he may at some point have to hurt Putin, or at least potentially, to extract concessions. Policymakers and analysts on both sides of the Atlantic have urged a range of tools the White House could use—including signing the Senate’s Russia sanctions bill, reopening arms sales to Ukraine, and lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons.

So far, Trump has shown no inclination to take such steps. The question may be how desperately he wants to take credit for ending the war.

It may seem strange—or even crazy—to talk of a Nobel Peace Prize for Donald Trump, especially in the wake of a summit that produced no peace. But it’s worth noting that Trump has long been “obsessed” with the prize, as Le Monde recently wrote, and it’s not unlikely that this obsession will persuade him to continue pushing for a deal on Ukraine. Six countries have recognized this and recommended Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize as the highest form of flattery—and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added a special touch by personally delivering his nomination to the president. Just last month, Trump himself telephoned Norway’s finance minister to discuss the prize, according to Dagens Næringsliv.

Earlier this year, when the idea of ​​a Trump-Putin summit was first floated, I asked several former US diplomats and intelligence officials how they would advise the president ahead of a summit with Putin.

On Friday, I reflected on one of those conversations—with John McLaughlin, the former acting director of the CIA, who told me that while he generally supported the idea of ​​US presidents meeting with adversaries to advance the cause of peace, Putin represented a “special case.”

“He’s not just an adversary,” McLaughlin said. “We talk about this as if Putin is just another big bad guy we might meet, but we really have to say, at the end of the day, he broke all the rules. He’s a convicted war criminal. He’s not your typical bad guy—he’s a pariah.”

McLaughlin offered several suggestions: that Trump set clear demands for the Russian leader in exchange for the “gift” of a summit; that he enter into a full alliance with our NATO allies; and, most importantly, that the president “know in advance what he ultimately wants.”

“Putin won’t come improvising,” McLaughlin said. So Trump needs to know very clearly: ‘What do I ultimately want?'”

The day after the summit, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Trump came to Anchorage “improvising,” as McLaughlin put it. We’ll soon find out if his approach has achieved anything. The fear is that history will judge the Alaska meeting the same way it judged Trump’s 2018 and 2019 summits with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — which featured theatrics, promises, warm words to a brutal dictator, and, above all, no progress at all.