IF the Gaza genocide does not serve as a strong enough daily reminder of how bereft of principles Western politics is, images of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump beamed live from Alaska this weekend reinforced the point quite unequivocally.
President Trump makes no bones about how he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. In his no-holds barred quest for being acknowledged as a peacemaker, not only did he bring in from the cold the Russian leader who has been a pariah in the eyes of the West, since his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but also gifted his guest a great optics win.
From the arrival at an airbase near Anchorage where the two landed within minutes of each other and then alighted from their respective planes and walked on their respective red carpet strips to where they converged, it was a carefully choreographed move that seemed more designed by the guest than the host.
As Trump waited for Putin to walk the final few steps he brought his two hands together to applaud the Russian leader and then the two met and smiled before a handshake, patting each other in a gesture of warmth, even affection. It isn’t clear what the US TV networks were saying but the BBC seemed to struggle with the live broadcast.
Till he arrived in Alaska, Putin did not appear prepared to return any part of eastern Ukraine.
The BBC North America correspondent saw the presence of F-35 stealth warplanes on the tarmac as a force projection. A flypast by a B2 stealth bomber and four F-35s was also similarly described (with a mention of how the B2s released their bunker buster bombs against Iranian nuclear sites in June).
But to the unbiased observer, Putin appeared amused rather than being awed or fearful at the spectacle. In all likelihood, he saw it as a salute by the USAF just as the soldiers lined up either side of the red carpet to ‘present arms’ salute with their ceremonial rifles.
Such was the Russian leader’s confidence at being welcomed back into acceptance by reputedly the most powerful nation’s president that he set aside protocol and security considerations to ride in the Trump limousine while his own limousine, flown in from Russia earlier, followed.
Again, bizarrely, one of the people commenting on BBC TV said they weren’t sure if Putin spoke or understood English, while the Russian leader was visibly engaged in a continuous conversation with his host and later told the media he greeted Trump with a ‘Good afternoon, neighbour. Good to see you’ when he met him. In Alaska, only the Bering Strait separates the two.
As the motorcade was pulling away from the airport, Putin smiled and waved to the cameras. The significance of all this is clear from the fact that over the past three years, Putin, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, has not been received by any Western country. And here the red carpet had been rolled out for him.
After three hours of talks, the two leaders faced the media but did not answer questions. Putin read from a prepared statement where, after talking about the US-Russia history with specific reference to Alaska, he seemed to flatter Trump, saying that he endorsed the latter’s view that the Ukraine war would not have happened if he had been the US president.
Putin said the meeting, and what was agreed in it, will mark the beginning of peace in Ukraine if what he called the ‘root causes’ were addressed. For his part, Trump spoke briefly and started by saying, “There no deal until there is a deal”. He described the meeting as productive where many points were agreed on but “a few” remain.
Before leaving the podium, he also said he would now call the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, European leaders and Nato officials for consultations.
The discussions must have gone well with the late-night White House announcement that the Ukrainian leader is arriving in Washington on Monday and will be received by Trump for talks. The European leaders, too, reacted positively to whatever they were told.
A peace deal will hinge on how far Putin and Zelensky and the latter’s Western European allies are willing to compromise on their ‘no land for peace’ stance. Till he arrived in Alaska, Putin did not appear prepared to return any part of eastern Ukraine his forces have captured. He also wants recognition of his 2014 annexation of Crimea.
For now, the security guarantees for Ukraine that are being discussed exclude any eastward expansion of Nato into Ukraine. Putin will also be averse to Western boots on the ground. It was, inter alia, talk of Nato expansion plans that first spooked Russia because, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow saw Ukraine as a buffer between Western Europe-Nato and itself.
Trump’s word may not amount to much as has been demonstrated by his support to the Gaza ethnic cleansing by Israel in contrast to his earlier reservations, but in this European conflict, he has moved away a shade from his earlier stance that only Ukraine will have to give up land for peace and it will be Europe and not the US which will offer security guarantees to Kiev.
But for Putin to leave the summit meeting beaming tells one how many compromises he has been forced to agree to, including the amount of land he would swap for peace. For now, he has pushed back by several weeks the likelihood of sterner US sanctions and also charmed his way to having Trump listen to his point of view face to face.
Trump can give himself any prize he wants, like our leaders have done, but hundreds of millions around the world will find any accolade he gets legitimate only if he moves from the end to the war in Ukraine to peace in Gaza and gives up his support for the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of the Palestinians.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2025