'Leaving Trump alone with Putin is like sending a piñata to a baseball bat convention'
Christopher Bucktin is an award-winning journalist with more than 25 years of experience, the majority of which he has spent at the Daily Mirror. A former Press Gazette Reporter of the Year, he has held senior roles including Head of Features, Head of Showbusiness, and Head of Content, before relocating to the United States in 2013 to become US Editor. Renowned for breaking agenda-setting exclusives, he has reported from the front lines of America's biggest news stories, led investigations into the Trump administration, and exposed key details in the Jeffrey Epstein case. His career highlights include securing the first interview with the Peru Two inside prison, becoming the first journalist to descend into drug lord El Chapo's escape tunnel, and spearheading coverage of Prince Andrew's ties to Epstein. He holds weekly columns in the Daily Mirror, Daily Star and Reach's regional titles.
On one side, we have the Russian despot: ex-KGB, trained in psychological warfare, fluent in deception, with decades of experience manipulating world leaders and spotting weakness like a hawk spots prey.
On the other side, a wannabe dictator: once described by a former professor as 'the worst student I ever had', a man whose foreign policy strategy begins and ends with 'winging it,' and whose negotiating style leans heavily on gut instinct, self-congratulation, and the hope no one is taking notes.
The world would do well to remember history. In Helsinki, 2018, Trump emerged from his meeting with Putin looking like a man who'd just been hypnotised by a slippery snake oil salesman. Asked if he accepted US intelligence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, he replied: 'President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be.'
Fiona Hill, his top Kremlin adviser at the time, later admitted she considered pulling a fire alarm or faking a medical emergency to stop the press conference before it got any worse.
Now, the stakes are far higher. This Friday, in Anchorage, Alaska, Trump will meet Putin one-on-one - no European leaders, no Ukrainian representation, no grown-ups in the room - to discuss 'land swapping' in Ukraine. Translated, it means Putin will pitch a Kremlin-friendly plan while Trump nods along, takes mental notes, all while probably complimenting Putin's skincare routine.
The White House has tried to downplay expectations, calling it a 'listening exercise' for Trump. It is the diplomatic equivalent of handing your car keys to a car thief because you 'want to understand his perspective.'
In private, officials admit this is exactly the kind of unstructured setting Putin thrives in - a mental chess grandmaster playing against a man who thinks chess is 'too slow' and prefers snap.
History has shown us what will happen next. Putin will spin a narrative so slick that it would make James Bond ordering a martini look awkward. Meanwhile, Trump will emerge convinced he's made history and that his long-coveted Nobel Peace Prize is in the bag.
After Helsinki, Trump announced a 'deal' with Putin that evaporated within days because he hadn't understood what he'd agreed to. This time, the cost could be Ukraine's sovereignty.
European leaders are already alarmed. They fear, rightly, that Trump could endorse a settlement over Kyiv's head, then fly home declaring 'peace in our time,' as Putin grins like a cat that's just found a dairy farm. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already made clear he will not cede territory Moscow can use to launch future attacks, but that won't stop Putin from trying to box the US president into a corner.
Let's be clear: leaving Trump alone with Putin is not diplomacy. It's malpractice. You might as well lock a rat in your kitchen and hope it makes you dinner.
If Alaska ends with Trump waving a sheet of paper and declaring he's secured peace while Ukraine loses its land, remember: the warning signs were there.
We've seen Trump tie himself in knots before. The only question now is how tightly Putin decides to pull them.
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