Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was the winner of the meeting in Alaska with US President Donald Trump. Photo: File
The highly anticipated Alaska peace summit between US President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ran for three hours. It was initially to be just the two presidents meeting but that changed as soon as Trump landed in Alaska. This went on to be a meeting that included the foreign affairs ministers and their respective envoys. And for a moment, it almost seemed the objective of this meeting — at least from the American side — was to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine, but that was not to be.
Trump had threatened Russia with severe sanctions if it did not agree to a ceasefire. This was just a cheap tactic the US has used on other countries. But, in this case, Putin did not blink and knows too well that this kind of diplomacy has short legs.
It would be wise for the US president to quickly learn that in diplomacy, the old adage “honesty is the best policy” reigns supreme. His flipflopping, wishy-washy tactics of threats has no basis in reality when it comes to dealing with any serious situation, and the Russia-Ukraine war is teaching him that lesson.
After the talks behind closed doors, Trump and his counterpart spoke to the media. Putin spoke for roughly eight minutes in which he thanked the US president for the opportunity to talk. He mentioned that the “agreement” reached was a significant milestone in these negotiations, and the need for economic cooperation. Putin said he would agree to the security guarantee of Ukraine by the Europeans and the US. On the other hand, Trump said “there is no deal, until the deal is made”, meaning the talks had not yielded any meaningful gains. He went on to say that he would call the president of Ukraine, major European players and Nato to report to them about the meeting in Alaska.
Trump’s tone before and after this meeting changed. He went from threatening secondary sanctions on Russia to saying “there will be no sanctions” because he realised the so-called secondary sanctions would have to directly target China and India as a way of preventing them from doing business with Moscow. It is evident that the US president has abandoned his position of a ceasefire and proposes a peace agreement.
Even though Putin categorically said the meeting was productive and he was happy with the “agreement” they had discussed, he gave no details about this so-called agreement. Neither did Trump.
Prior to the Alaska meeting, and in his usual fashion of bullying others the US president warned Russia of secondary sanctions. He gave a 50-day ultimatum to end the war, then changed it to 10 days and then a week — or else the Russian economy would be “crushed”. And that one week ultimatum was to have ended on 8 August. Perhaps Trump realised that if people begin to see that his threats have no consequences, then no one would ever take him seriously. Hence, he had to work out some sort of plan and called for a summit with Putin to save face at home. But the Alaska meeting may have been a Trump card to deflect attention from the Jefferey Epstein scandal.
Putin touched down in Alaska at about 10:55am local time. The man came prepared. His narrative of the war has never changed, his objectives for the war remain constant, and after that meeting with Trump, it was Putin that walked away as a clear winner.
Just three days after the Alaska meeting, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was escorted to the White House by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, president of European Union Ursula von der Leyen and the Nato general secretary, Mark Rutte.
Throughout their discussion, one item seems to be prominent on the agenda, and that was security guarantees for Ukraine, something akin to article 5 of Nato as a condition for further negotiations, which is wishful thinking. Zbig Brzezinski, a prominent American political scientist and former national security adviser, once observed that “Russia with Ukraine in its sphere of influence is a major power in the heartland. And conversely, Russia without Ukraine in its sphere of influence is just a regional power.”
Essentially, this is the root cause of this conflict, where Russia seeks to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence, while the West wants to see a Ukraine that is outside of the sphere of Russian influence.
The US president should be reminded that he has a duty and a moral obligation to take a firm position on this war. The more ambiguous he remains, the more bloodshed on the battlefield and the further away this conflict will be from being conclusive. It’s becoming apparent that he is already trying to pass this torch on. One of his social media posts just before the arrival of European leaders and Zelenskyy was quite telling: “President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight.” This is not the kind of comment one expects from someone positioning himself as a peace broker. Trump seems to be shaky, ambiguous and at times even dishonest in his approach to end this war. This is the same war that he told Americans and the world that he would end it within 24 hours of taking office as president of the United States.
Perhaps, a lesson in history will help Trump to recognise that this is a defining moment for him and his administration. Many years ago, when the Americans lost the war in Vietnam and were forced to accept fate at the negotiating table, which meant leaving Vietnam under a peace agreement secured in Paris. The American chief diplomat and negotiator, Henry Kissinger, alongside his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, were nominated for the Noble peace prize. Le Duc Tho turned down the prize on the basis that the peace accord signed between the US and Vietnam had not been reached or implemented fully. Kissinger gladly accepted the award. The moral lesson is that diplomacy requires tact, forthrightness and that the truth must be told and all parties to the conflict must be heard. Those involved must honor their duty to find a just and lasting solution.
Aaron Ng’ambi is a political analyst, Zambian politician and newspaper columnist.