Historic Summit: An Empty and Underwhelming PR Spectacle, But Still Good For Relations

The long-awaited Trump-Putin summit came and went in Anchorage, Alaska:

The cartoonish staging of the event coordination was another Trump ‘special’, straight from the playbook of his teenage-boy fever dream, stacking warplanes like matchbox toys, and even arranging for a crude B-2 Spirit and F-35 stealth bomber flyover above Putin’s head just as he made his way down the hastily-draped runner as some kind of strongman ‘power move’ and intimidation tactic, meant to evoke the recent Iranian strikes:

This type of antic stunt ages very badly—it’s gimmicky, low-impulse, and signals to the counterparty—in this case, Putin—that you care more about domestic optics than establishing an atmosphere of true rapport and cooperation; i.e. it’s more a show of bravado to the domestic audience and critics. To the rest of the world, such displays lack taste and class.

That’s not to mention that Trump clearly tried to “mog” Putin using Erdogan’s geriatric technique, but to no avail—Putin could have easily Judo-tossed him off his cankles:

But let’s get to the nitty-gritty, how did the actual meeting go?

The first real indications were not good as reports came that a mutual luncheon to be held afterwards was cut short and Trump immediately flew off to DC—which rang echoes of Trump’s earlier foreboding statement that if no deal was reached he’d get out of dodge “fast” and there would be no second meeting.

By all means wait for the reporting on what was discussed or agreed or not, but... the luncheon was nixed, as was Putin's interview with Fox. A grand bargain solidified usually goes the other way. The Russians not luxuriating in the moment, as you'd expect if they got even half of what they came for. Make of that what you will.

Likewise, no press questions were fielded as Putin and Trump both gave brief boilerplate statements with no substance at all.

This had led me to initially surmise that the meeting was far more disastrous than Trump’s team attempted to portray, and pretty much went how we envisioned: Putin likely laid out the “root causes must be addressed” argument, and the Trump team had no further cards. In fact, Putin made reference to the ‘root causes’ in his subsequent press statement, so this is likely what happened.

However, in his subsequent interview with Hannity Trump said the meeting was a “10 out of 10” on his scale, and great things were achieved. He had nothing but complimentary words for Putin, calling him ‘strong and tough as hell’:

But the thing is, Trump went on to give extremely evasive answers, essentially dodging the question if anything concrete was achieved:

HANNITY: You said there was one big issue you and Putin don't agree on. Are you prepared to go public with that?

TRUMP: No, I'd rather not. I guess somebody is gonna go public with it, they'll figure it out.

Hannity even invoked Trump’s own boast that he would know the “vibe” of the room within two minutes, and Trump again gave a long meandering non-answer.

So, we have the fact that planned press events were cut short, and Putin and Trump both quickly flew off after a mere two hour meeting, leaving things feeling awkwardly abrupt and inconclusive. This is likely due to the fact that nothing definitive could be announced as the two sides clearly had no common ground.

But the only hint of optimism came in the above interview excerpt where Trump implies that Zelensky and Europe have to make a tough decision on something. This could signal that the meeting went roughly as I had predicted, wherein I said that the point of the summit could be for Trump to throw Zelensky under the bus, showing the world that it is Putin who’s ready to settle and putting the onus on Zelensky and Europe.

The fact that Trump has not—at least for now—made good on his promise of immediately cutting things off with Russia and slinging out “serious consequences” seems to imply that, despite achieving nothing, Trump was bluffing and does not want to go “hard ball” against Russia, and seemingly prefers to shift the ‘ball’ into Ukraine’s court instead.

All in all I still think the meeting was a great step in US-Russian relations for many other reasons apart from Ukraine. The simple fact of open dialogue and slow-building bonhomie is well worth it after an era of no dialogue and open hostility under the likes of Biden and Obama.

We can only assume where things left off is that Trump now knows first hand precisely what Russia’s immutable demands are, and he needs to find a way to somehow package them into an acceptable form for Ukraine and Europe. The problem is, this is impossible, so for now Trump is stuck playing evasion games and hoping to buy time until the situation on the ground is more amenable, i.e. Zelensky gets desperate, or is altogether ousted.

But we’ll have to wait and see what future statements bring, as the Russian side has yet to make any definitive statements of their own about the meeting.

Lastly, for those of you who voted in the recent poll that Trump would ‘kick the can down the road’, using the meeting as a way to save himself from his own self-imposed ‘sanctions’ trap, it seems you were right. Asked about whether he would still sanction Russia, Trump replied: “Well, because the meeting went so well, we don’t have to think about that now.”

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For now a quick frontline update:

After bringing in several ‘elite’ brigades, Ukraine has begun fiercely counterattacking Russian forces in the extended salient north of Pokrovsk—the infamous ‘bunny ears’ of the breakthrough.

There are a few advanced positions Ukraine has retaken at the very tip of the ears where Russian logistics would have been the most sparse.

"The 93rd Cold Yar Brigade cleared and took control of the villages of Hruzke and Vesele near Dobropillia, where a recent breakthrough by the Russians occurred."

The Ukrainian 93rd showed a video of a UGV robotic platform assaulting Russian positions in Vesele, where they claimed to have neutralized and captured several Russian troops:

The geolocation is as follows:

93rd Mech Brigade Vesele, Donetsk Ukrainian UGV with a gun shoots at a house (0:15) 48.542753, 37.270097

Which puts it precisely here at the small red circle below:

So, the AFU pushed the very leading edge of the Russian breakthrough back a tad, and are hailing this as a great success. The problem is, as explained last time, these AFU units were pulled from other fronts which immediately began to collapse as consequence of this.

For instance, a major collapse in the Kupyansk area occurred today, with Ukrainian units withdrawing from this large swath of land around Petropavlovka, east of Kupyansk:

South of there, more territory was taken on the old Kreminna front, north of the Serebriansky forest:

As can be seen, more territory was taken south of Torske, which itself was just captured two days ago, as well as further advances into neighboring Zarichne above.

Meanwhile, on the Mirnograd front next to Pokrovsk, Russian forces were geolocated via a Ukrainian sniper video to have taken positions in this industrial sector on the T-0504 road:

Which would be under the red circle:

A word about Pokrovsk:

Pokrovsk. They write that our assault infantry uses the "Ninja Turtles" tactic. During the day, the soldiers hide in the sewers under the city, in the trees, in the basements, and under the hoods of cars, and only come out at night to attack the enemy.

The enemy is confused and cannot seize the initiative, as they do not know the real number of our assault groups and their location. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have only one road to retreat from the city, the M-3 highway through the village of Grishino. The other roads are controlled by FPV units of the Russian army.

An example of a Russian FAB barrage hitting Ukrainian positions in the breakthrough area north of Pokrovsk:

FABs from UMPK in the Shakhovo area, north of Pokrovsk, on the front line of our offensive

But those weren’t even the biggest advances of the day. That honor goes to the total capture of Iskra and Aleksandrograd, southwest of Pokrovsk, on the old Velyka Novosilka sector:

As a result of decisive and skillful offensive actions by the 36th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 29th Army of the "Vostok" troop group, the settlement of Aleksandrograd in the DPR has been liberated!!!

As can be seen, the war rolls on irrespective of political pageantry. The vast irreconcilable differences rooted in the war’s origins can only be solved kinetically.

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A couple last items:

Current Russian ambassador to the US Alexander Darchiev told Zarubin that there is no major breakthrough, but that the two sides are “trying”:

Russian Ambassador to the USA Darchiev, in an interview with Russia 1 journalist Pavel Zarubin, responded to a question about progress in negotiations: "We are trying, but there are no major breakthroughs yet."

According to him, for normalization, the USA must return the confiscated Russian diplomatic property.

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Some more behind the scenes photos taken of Putin and Trump’s cordial interaction “off-camera”:

As always, on his official White House page Trump had to post the most ego-boosting one, depicting himself as a tough guy jabbing his finger in Putin’s chest:

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Lastly, in a rare moment at the end of the presser Putin invited Trump to Moscow in English:

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