10
Loading video...
By Tom O'Connor
Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign Policy
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
One year ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to hold all the cards. After more than three years of war in Ukraine and virtual isolation from the White House, he had secured a historic meeting with a U.S. president skeptical of Western support for Kyiv.
President Donald Trump’s political comeback seemed to validate Putin’s belief in the fragility of transatlantic solidarity. Now he would make his case directly in Alaska, a former Russian territory no Kremlin leader had visited.
Hands were shaken, new U.S.-brokered talks began and some analysts predicted a total collapse in U.S. aid to Ukraine. John Bolton, the veteran U.S. diplomat who served as national security adviser during Trump’s first term, declared at the time that “Putin clearly won,” having “achieved most of what he wanted” from the meeting without any concrete commitments.
Read More on News
...
But for all the symbolism and political capital the Anchorage summit offered, it failed to deliver a decisive breakthrough for Moscow. “I think on net it was an important summit from Russia’s point of view,” Bolton told Newsweek ahead of the August 15 anniversary. “I wouldn’t say Putin emerged the victor. I think he lived to fight another day politically with Trump, which was important.”
Bolton argued the biggest shift had been on the battlefield, where Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia clouded what he said had become a dominant narrative in the minds of Trump and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff of inevitable Russian victory.
“And while it’s certainly not to say that Russia might not yet win,” Bolton added, “I don’t think anybody would argue that you can make a credible case that Russian victory is inevitable.”
Related Story
Putin Has an Unexpected Ally He Can’t Control
Putin's Moment
The Alaska summit advanced Putin’s efforts to reassert global influence and recalibrate his relationship with Trump.
Trump had begun accusing U.S. allies in Europe of aligning with the same liberal agenda as his Democratic opponents, echoing Moscow’s own depictions of a decaying globalist European order.
“The Alaska summit was an important indicator of the transformation of U.S.-Russia relations,” Ivan Timofeev, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council think tank in Moscow, told Newsweek. “While President [Joe] Biden’s administration rebuffed by default any meaningful dialogue after the outbreak of the militarized dispute between Russia and Ukraine, President Trump’s approach was of stark difference.
“However, such a change had a broader context. President Trump and his associates reconsidered the relations with Europe and Ukraine at least on the rhetorical level. The new paradigm was much more pragmatic, including the calculation of costs and benefits in the relations with allies and partners. In the case of Russia, the very fact of joint search for the resolution of major problems, including Ukraine, was a step forward.”
Timofeev added that “the fact that negotiations and U.S.-Russia discussions continued for such a long period was an achievement itself.”
Similarities in Trump and Putin’s outlooks on great power geopolitics remain central to Russia’s analysis. “The key point that Russia has occasionally claimed it took away from the summit was an agreement with the United States about the way the world should work,” Keir Giles, associate fellow of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Program, told Newsweek.
...
Russian media sometimes refers to this as the “Spirit of Anchorage,” which Giles described as dictating “that the desirable position for the United States is a retreat from global presence and a focus on the Western Hemisphere.... entirely in accordance with Russia’s ideas that the world should be divided into spheres of influence, where the United States sticks to its own backyard and gives Russia a free hand in what it considers to be its own backyard,” Giles said.
And Trump’s relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could hardly seem to get worse at the time. Tensions date to the infamous “quid pro quo” scandal, during which the U.S. leader in his first term was accused of threatening to withhold aid to Ukraine if it didn’t open a corruption investigation into the Biden family, leading to Trump’s first House impeachment in 2019.
Seeking a reset, Zelensky instead received a public scolding in February of last year that shocked even some Republicans and appeared to threaten future U.S. aid to Kyiv as Putin’s time to shine arrived in Anchorage in August that year.
What’s more, the White House’s 28-point plan to end the war would leave Russia in control of roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s pre-war territory, cap Kyiv’s armed forces and shelve NATO entry.
The Alaska meeting also coincided with renewed Russian momentum as troops advanced, adapting to the realities of drone warfare and capitalizing on Ukraine’s manpower shortages.
Olexiy Haran, professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, said that Ukrainians had a different term for the so-called Spirit of Anchorage—“the bad smell of Anchorage.”
Then Came Reality
Ukraine’s disadvantages remain dire, but Russia’s failure to translate its upper hand into decisive success has weakened its position as Ukraine and its European supporters resisted a feared total U.S. U-turn.
Haran credited Ukraine’s partners, including Canada and Japan, with having “managed to persuade Trump not to look weak” in pressing for the 28-point plan. But he noted that the administration also played a role in Ukraine’s ability to introduce added pressure on Russia.
“There’s a lot of criticism regarding Trump, I’m also among these critics, but intelligence data continues to be supplied to Ukraine. That’s really, really important,” Haran told Newsweek. “And the Europeans are buying American weapons for Ukraine. So, it’s not for free, but still, it continues.”
July’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, highlighted that effort, with Ukraine securing a military assistance package worth about $81 billion from European nations and Canada. Trump floated allowing Kyiv to build Patriot systems before later backtracking, as Washington’s own interceptor stockpile dwindled amid the war with Iran.
Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has drawn attention to Russia’s homefront, stoking fuel crises and costing the Kremlin billions of dollars in economic fallout. A Levada Center survey published in July showed Putin’s approval rating had dipped to its lowest point since the beginning of the conflict at 74 percent.
Meanwhile, Trump appears to be losing patience. “I think [Zelensky] wants to make a deal, and I think Putin wants to make a deal, but there’s a lot of dislike, as you probably noticed,” Trump said during a July 31 Cabinet meeting. “Nobody wants to make concessions, but they’re both going to have to make some concessions.”
...
Andrey Kortunov, a member of the Russian International Affairs Council, argued that Trump’s expectations regarding Ukraine and its European supporters did not appear to match reality once it came time to approach the negotiating table.
“It seems that in the beginning of his second term, Donald Trump underestimated the resilience of the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian state, as well as the commitment of major European nations to continuously provide military and financial assistance to Kyiv,” Kortunov said.
“A year ago, Trump might have thought that the Ukrainian side would have to accept any plan that he could negotiate in good faith with Vladimir Putin. However, over the last year neither the Ukrainian leaders nor their European partners demonstrated a lot of additional flexibility on the terms of a possible settlement.”
Kortunov predicted little movement from the Kremlin.
“It is very unlikely that President Putin will make any significant changes to the positions that he articulated in Anchorage a year ago,” Kortunov said. “There is no feeling in Moscow that the dynamics on the battlefield have shifted in favor of the Ukrainian side—Russia continues its offensive, albeit slowly.... This means that, unfortunately, today we are not too close to the end of the conflict.”
The War Grinds On
One year after the Alaska summit, little optimism appears to exist on either side. Giles, who had initially described it as “disastrous for Ukraine and Europe,” warned that much of the narrative of Kyiv turning the tables on Moscow had been fueled by “incomplete depictions.”
And “for all the enthusiasm which greeted the videos of things in Russia going up in flames, first the oil refineries, then the Wildberries [e-commerce] warehouses,” he said, “there are other developments which are going to be far more damaging for Kyiv, like, for example, the lack of air defense munitions, the arrival of North Korean ballistic missiles, the damage to the heating and power infrastructure, which means that next winter the combination of those factors is going to be an even bigger challenge.”
...
Putin may also expand mobilization by drafting up to a half-million more soldiers after Russia’s parliamentary elections held from September 18 to 20.
As for the White House’s position, Giles argued that “every time there is a statement from the Trump administration that appears vaguely beneficial to European security by being more even-handed with how it sees Russia and Ukraine, the excitement is an overreaction because time and again those hopes have been let down.”
Analysts said the administration’s shifting messaging made it difficult to conclude any substantive evolution in Trump’s views. The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, launched on February 28, has only further complicated White House efforts to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Bolton, for his part, warned that such distraction could ultimately work in Putin’s favor as the Russian leader continues to bet on victory in the long run.
“I think now the lack of attention may benefit Russia even more if Ukraine is really as hard up for interceptors as Zelensky is saying,” Bolton said. “They’re very worried that if somewhere or another we don’t find more Patriot missiles, Ukraine’s in real trouble.
“So, it’s not Putin that’s at this point disadvantaged by lack of attention. I think it’s more Ukraine, for a variety of reasons, that is the loser.”
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines