While President Donald Trump hailed his meeting with Vladimir Putin as a great success, touting a peace deal, all news outlets reported that the summit in Alaska on Friday ended without a ceasefire agreement, except, of course, for Fox News, which used words like “historic” and “good progress” toward the end of war in Ukraine.
“A great and very successful day in Alaska!” said Trump on Truth Social in the wake of his encounter with Putin. “The meeting went very well, as did a late-night phone call with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and various European Leaders, including the highly respected Secretary General of NATO ¨[Mark Rutte].” Trump said all those he spoke with after the meeting with his Russian counterpart “determined that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.”
Trump and Zelensky to meet again in Washington
Trump announced that Zelensky will meet with him on Monday, August 18, at the Oval Office, where, “if all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin. Potentially, millions of people’s lives will be saved.” However, Putin made no mention of meeting Zelenskiy when speaking to reporters. His aide, Yuri Ushakov, told the Russian state news agency TASS that a three-way summit had not been discussed. Igor Kastyukevich, a senator from the Kherson Region, told TASS, “Throughout the entire special military operation, Russia has never changed its position, and now third parties are not only ready to listen to it, but also to discuss its terms.”.
Most Read on Euro Weekly News
“>
Tom Cruise turns down Donald Trump’s invitation to honour him
“>
Trump and Putin greet each other as summit begins
“>
Russia restricts WhatsApp and Telegram calls ahead of Trump–Putin meeting
Kastyukevich also said, ” By the rhetoric of Trump, if Ukraine truly wants peace, as it declares, it will have to make concessions. Moreover, Kiev must take real steps that are acceptable not only to Kiev, but primarily to Russia.”
Putin ‘expects’ Zelensky to cede
Putin himself said that, to make a “settlement lasting and long-term, we need to eliminate the root causes of the conflict” in Ukraine. That means, according to BBC and several other news outlets, that Russia is expecting Zelensky to cede to its demands that include Ukraine’s withdrawal from four regions partially occupied by Russia, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and give up its efforts to join the NATO military alliance.
Zelensky has ruled out ceding Russia any territory, warning that it would only empower Moscow to mount another offensive in the future.
Steve Rosenberg, BBC’s Russia Editor, said that the Putin-Trump press conference was not a press conference because no questions from reporters were allowed. And the two presidents quickly left the podium, as did all their staff members.
Putin succeeded, Trump failed
“[Those are] Clear signs that when it comes to the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump still have a major difference of opinion,” Rosenger said. He suggested that Putin left successfully, while Trump did not manage to get what he said he was there to get: peace for Ukraine.
Trump told Fox News that, although “we did make a lot of progress,” “as far as I am concerned, there’s no deal until there’s no deal”. He, however, said his advice to Zelensky is to “make a deal”, which, given Russia’s unchanged demands, seems highly improbable.
For Trump, that Putin agreed the war in Ukraine would have never happened had the US president been in office was a significant victory. Trump also told Fox he would desist from new sanctions on Russia for now.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that, “The two leaders appeared to be very friendly for most of their hours together in Alaska, beginning with a red-carpet greeting. However, that warmth seemed to evaporate at the brief press conference after the talks, where Trump appeared frustrated and tired.”
Russia made no concessions
But while Trump seemed “frustrated and tired”, Russia has not stopped boasting how successful the meeting was for them, “celebrating the fact that the Russian leader met his US counterpart without making concessions and now faces no sanctions despite rejecting Trump’s ceasefire demands,” the Guardian wrote.
“The meeting proved that negotiations are possible without preconditions,” wrote former president Dmitry Medvedev on Telegram. He added that the summit showed that talks could continue as Russia wages war in Ukraine.
Putin gave nothing, got everything
The Guardian also quoted a member of the Russian foreign policy team, who spoke on condition of remaining unnamed, that “Putin gave Trump nothing, but still got everything he wanted. Trump finally listened to his demands.”
While Trump might be trying to spin the summit in his favour, Russia insists that “the tasks of the special military operation (as Putin has called the invasion of Ukraine) will be accomplished either by military or diplomatic means,” wrote senior Russian lawmaker Andrei Klishas on Telegram.
Trump ‘deserves the Nobel Peace Prize’
Regardless of the outcome and that he now “washes his hands, saying peace is now up to Ukraine and its European allies, Trump believes he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, although he also thinks he will not get it and that instead someone who writes a book about him will win the prestigious prize.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in July that Trump has “brokered, on average, about one peace deal or ceasefire per month during his six months in office. It’s well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
