Ceasefire, sanctions avoided in win-win summit for Putin
Not only has he managed to avoid US sanctions being imposed on Russia and secondary tariffs on its trading partners, as US President Donald Trump had threatened only a week ago, it now appears that he has convinced the US President that a ceasefire is not necessary to end the war in Ukraine.
Mr Trump's latest comment on Truth Social said it all: "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."
Going straight to a peace agreement jettisons, what has been until now, a shared US, Ukrainian and European policy that a ceasefire must be agreed first before any substantial peace talks take place on the key issue of occupied territory.
Russia opposed US ceasefire proposals in March and April so the logical conclusion is that Mr Putin convinced Mr Trump during their three-hour meeting to drop the idea of a ceasefire.
We can expect Mr Trump to place pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to entering peace talks soon when they meet in Washington on Monday.
Only last Tuesday all EU member states except Hungary endorsed a statement that only "meaningful negotiations" can take place "in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities".
The UK shares the same position.
Mr Trump's 180-degree turn will cause unease in Europe but it is hard to see how European leaders can now bring the conversation back to the need to first establish a ceasefire.
Mr Putin also managed to make the summit more about US-Russia relations and shared business opportunities, rather than Ukraine.
Yesterday's press conference in Alaska lasted all of 12 minutes and journalists were granted no questions.
Mr Putin spoke for nine of those minutes, and delivered a rambling historical narrative about Alaska's Russian heritage and US-Russian cooperation during World War II.
No one had come to hear that.
When he did briefly mention, what he termed, "the situation around Ukraine", he stuck to his familiar script.
"We need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict, and we've said it multiple times," he said.
So Mr Trump's promise on Thursday to enact "very severe consequences" on Russia if it did not agree to a ceasefire during the Alaska meeting has come to nothing.
Instead, Russia's leader has come away from the summit with a commitment to go straight to peace talks and that does not bode well for Ukraine.
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Irish Times
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