Kyiv, Ukraine – The Alaska summit between United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was a masterclass in how a former intelligence officer uses his skills of manipulation on a self-centred narcissist.
That’s the impression a Kyiv-based political analyst who has closely followed the war with Russia got, they told Al Jazeera, after watching the interaction between Trump and Putin during their summit on Friday, which broke no ground in stopping Europe’s hottest war since 1945.
Putin “worked [Trump] well”, said the analyst who requested anonymity, referring to the years Putin spent as a Soviet spy in East Germany recruiting informants.
On the tarmac at Elmendorf-Richardson, a Cold War-era airbase outside Alaska’s capital, Anchorage, Putin greeted Trump with a “good morning, dear neighbour,” referring to Alaska’s proximity to northeastern Russia.
Trump literally rolled out a red carpet for Putin, gave him a long handshake and a ride in “The Beast”, the presidential limousine – and Putin beamed from the backseat.
During a brief news conference, Putin kept thanking Trump, repeating and rephrasing what the American president had said about the talks, Ukraine and a possible peace settlement.
Putin flattered Trump, including by backing the US leader’s assertions – such as his claim that he could have prevented the Russian-Ukrainian war had he won the 2020 presidential vote instead of Joe Biden.
“Today, President Trump was saying that had he been president back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so,” the smiling Putin told reporters after the talks. “I can confirm that.”
And it was Putin’s manipulation masterfully disguised as saccharine flattery that ended the talks with Trump’s conclusion that “there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Kucherenko said.
“He fed the narcissist with whatever one needs to feed a narcissist into manipulating him – endless quotes, the endless ‘how the American president said’, endless appellations to the topics [Trump] is interested in,” said the analyst, who has authored analytical reports on Russia’s military and has addressed the US Congress in a hearing on the war.
‘Nothing concrete’
Putin’s remarks at the news conference after the talks lasted for eight minutes and included a lecture on when czarist Russia owned Alaska and how the Soviet and US militaries partnered during World War II.
He spoke more than twice as long as Trump, who talked for only three minutes and admitted that the talks resulted in an agreement to hold more talks.
“There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway. So there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” the US president said.
Trump and Putin also refused to take questions.
As a result, the summit ended with “nothing concrete”, Kucherenko said, as Putin said the “root causes” of the war should be addressed before any ceasefire or real steps towards a peace settlement are made.
“In order to make the [future peace] settlement lasting and long term, we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict, and we’ve said it multiple times, to consider all legitimate concerns of Russia,” Putin said.
“Root causes” is Putin’s code for rejecting Ukraine’s existence outside Moscow’s political shadow and denying its very sovereignty.
The China angle
However, the talks were not a total triumph for Putin, another Ukrainian observer said.
They lasted for less than three hours instead of the seven that Russian officials had announced, and there was no bread broken over a joint lunch.
And what was discussed behind closed doors went far beyond the war.
“Russia works through economy and geopolitics, offers Trump profit here and now, and also haggles over the topic of containing China,” Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.
“Based on that, the Kremlin is trying to gain political concessions that could help Russia confirm its ambitions for the status of a geopolitical centre, ” he said.
“And Ukraine is just a derivative part – an important but derivative one – of these processes,” he said.
As the White House wants to prevent the fusion of Moscow’s and Beijing’s interests, Trump finds it beneficial to negotiate business projects and political interactions with Moscow, Tyshkevych said.
“As a result, the United States is not interested in a total defeat and a crisis for Russia. Alas for us,” he said.
However, both Washington and Beijing wouldn’t agree with boosting Moscow’s geopolitical role to the status of a third global power, so the White House only “partially understands” Putin’s ambitions, he said.
What’s next?
For Ukraine, it all means more hostilities and attacks by Russian drones and missiles – while Moscow would boost mobilisation of men of fighting age, he said.
One of Ukraine’s pre-eminent military analysts, meanwhile, is pessimistic about the summit’s outcomes.
The very fact of a face-to-face with Trump on American soil means Putin was “legitimised” and raised from the role of a political pariah, Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the Ukrainian military’s General Staff, told Al Jazeera.
“He was legitimised in an absolutely unacceptable way” while being an “international evil man who should be held responsible for his actions”, Romanenko said.
“Yet again, Trump didn’t fulfil his promises about sanctions [on Russia], didn’t reach a position on a ceasefire,” he said.
Ukraine, therefore, will have to continue its “complicated fight until Trump grows his willpower and political will”, the general said.
Russia will accelerate its attempts to break through Ukraine’s defence lines in the east and will resume its devastating air strikes with drones and missiles, he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities will need to make strategic decisions to start a “full and just” mobilisation of men of fighting age and focus the economy on military needs, Romanenko said.
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