Even before Alaska summit, Putin is redrawing global order to his liking

Washington Post

2 days ago

Even before talks begin, President Vladimir Putin's meeting with President Donald Trump at a U.S. military base in Alaska on Friday is advancing the Russian's goal of redrawing the global security order, as the two men revive a great-power system in which a few big countries call the shots.
Putin set the scene last week after meeting Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, when he ruled out meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until certain conditions were met — conditions that he said remained 'far off.'
Trump agreed and dismissed Zelensky's attendance, even as the future of his nation — and its 40 million citizens — hangs in the balance.
Zelensky had been in many meetings in 3½ years — since the start of Russia's invasion — Trump said Monday, and 'nothing happened. I mean, do you want somebody that's been doing this for 3½ years?'
A tête-à-tête summit, on U.S. soil, was not Putin's only important win. He also diverted, for now, Trump's threat of tough economic sanctions against Russian oil and deflected Trump's calls for a ceasefire. On Monday, Trump was back to blaming Zelensky for the war — echoing Putin — although Trump seemed more conciliatory in a videoconference with Zelensky and European leaders Wednesday.
The Alaska meeting's optics reinforce Putin's long-held goal of rebuilding Russia as one of a handful of major global powers with rightful spheres of influence, and it delivers on his short-term tactical objective of a one-on-one meeting to woo and manipulate Trump.
A former senior Kremlin official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, called the Alaska summit 'a golden opportunity' for Putin, adding: 'And of course a visit to the U.S. is a massive victory.'
Another person with close ties to the Kremlin, said the summit was 'a real chance to put an end to this' and that the meeting had been designed to 'soothe the Russian elites, for whom this war is a disgrace, and want everything to get back to normal.'
Former senior Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who resigned over the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, said Putin had offered so little that it was difficult to see why Trump agreed to meet. He said it appeared to be a Kremlin ploy to divert Trump from sanctions, just as Putin diverted Trump's call for a ceasefire in May by proposing peace talks in Istanbul that delivered nothing.
While Trump has lately criticized Putin's attacks on Ukrainian cities, he has not imposed sanctions or any other pressure on Russia beyond rhetoric. Trump told reporters on Wednesday there would be 'very severe' consequences if Putin continued the war after the Alaska meeting, although he has made similar threats before without following up.
'It's a bad idea for Trump to host this meeting,' Bondarev said, questioning the purpose and benefit. 'First he said, 'I want to meet with Vladimir and we will make a deal somehow.'' But then, he added, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the meeting was to find out what Putin wants, when 'it's totally visible what the other side wants.'
Putin has long made clear that he is demanding that Ukraine surrender four resource-rich regions and recognize Russia's 2014 illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea. Putin also wants Ukraine barred from NATO membership and its military constrained to the point it would have little use.
Rubio said Tuesday that meeting Putin was 'not a concession' but a 'feel-out meeting.'
'A meeting is what you do to kind of figure out and make your decision,' Rubio contended, adding an echo of Trump's assertion that the chances of success would be clear early on.
Meetings between U.S. and Russian presidents — leaders of the nations with the world's largest nuclear arsenals — are normally exquisitely choreographed, highly negotiated events, in which concrete 'deliverables' are agreed upon well in advance and nothing is left to chance.
Putin's attacks on Zelensky's legitimacy as recently as Aug. 1, and his depictions of Ukraine as a corrupt and artificial state, firmly place the Ukrainian on a lower plane, worthy of a meeting only when he accepts Russia's terms.
'Putin would like to present it to Trump like this: that with you, Donald, we know how things are done, and all these people from Europe and this Zelensky boy, this nasty boy, shouldn't be involved,' Bondarev said. 'They don't know what to do. They don't know what they want. We know what we want, so let's agree. Maybe Trump can be flattered like this.'
Trump, perhaps unwittingly, reinforces the narrative.
At a news conference Monday, he seemed to portray two tough men working out a deal together, dismissing Zelensky's input and claiming that European leaders 'very much rely on me. If it wasn't for me, this thing would never get solved until the last person breathing is dead.'
Trump expressed strong dissatisfaction with Zelensky, whom he seemed to blame for the fighting: 'I get along with Zelensky, but I disagree with what he's done — very, very severely disagree. This is a war that should have never happened,' he said.
He complained about Zelensky citing the barriers in Ukraine's constitution to changing borders. 'He's got approval to go into war, kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap,' Trump said. Trump, however, did not mention that Russia quick wrote the invaded and illegally annexed Ukrainian regions into its constitution in a bid to prevent their return.
Boasting that Putin told him how 'tough' he was, Trump called Russia 'tough' too, and he described Putin's invasion as a reflection of the Russian character.
'It's a warring nation,' Trump said. 'That's what they do. They fight a lot of wars.'
Zelensky, he warned, had to accept 'some land swapping' that would be 'for the good of Ukraine' but also 'some bad stuff for both.'
Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the German parliament from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's center-right Christian Democratic Union, said the exclusion of Europe and Ukraine from the meeting in Alaska meant the end of the West, in the sense of a collective alliance of the United States, European Union nations and NATO allies.
''The West' as an emotional or ethical term — it's over,' Kiesewetter said. 'That's my main concern.' His other fear, he added, is the fate of Ukrainians.
Putin has other opportunities in Alaska, with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stating Tuesday that a key Moscow objective is to 'normalize' relations with the U.S., a reference to the Kremlin's goal of ending sanctions, restoring direct flights and enabling U.S.-Russia business deals.
Russia also wants to deflect blame onto Ukraine for Trump's failure so far to end the war, according to analysts, in the hope that the Trump administration could halt intelligence support to Ukraine just as it has slowed weapons deliveries.
With recent Russian battlefield advances, Putin is confident that victory is with reach, according to Russian analysts, and he is disinclined to compromise, despite huge Russian casualties. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the number of Russians killed or wounded will reach 1 million over the summer.
But the former senior Kremlin official said that Putin no longer cares about the human cost of the war, calling him 'very thick-skinned.'
'He is like a turtle,' the former official said. 'This does not touch him anymore.'
War fatigue appears to be setting in on all sides. The official said most people within the Kremlin oppose the war but are afraid to tell Putin.
'Everyone is scared of Putin. People do not want to talk about compromising because they all need to show that they are patriots,' he said.
As for the summit, the former official said: 'I have low expectations. … They will either have to give an ultimatum to Ukraine, or walk away with very little achieved.'
Siobhán O'Grady in Kyiv contributed to this report