The only currency Stalin considered solid, wrote Henry Kissinger, — is territories. Churchill and Roosevelt understood this well, actively engaging in negotiations with the generalissimo on the redistribution of territories and zones of influence. If Alaska‑2025 is reminiscent of Tehran‑43 and Yalta‑45 in any way, it is precisely in this — in the readiness to recognize a certain justification for the territorial claims of the Soviet, now Russian, leader.
Peace and World
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump during a press conference at Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Alaska, August 16, 2025. Photo: Jeenah Moon / Reuters
Of course, in Anchorage, Trump did not openly endorse Putin's territorial imperial claims, but he allowed him to gain the prize the Russian autocrat dreamed of. Putin simultaneously received an indulgence to continue military actions indefinitely and maintained relations with Trump, emerging from the verbal waters of negotiations dry — that is, without additional painful sanctions. The slogan of the meeting was Pursuing peace — something like «pursuing peace», «moving towards peace». But who were the participants deceiving — themselves or the entire planet Earth? Rather, it was something like Dividing the world — «dividing the world». They confused peace and world.
There are questions for those who expected a «deal». Achieving peace — is not a «deal», it is complex diplomatic and political efforts. If they turn out to be comprehensive and well-prepared, the result is détente, a relaxation of global tensions, as demonstrated to the world more than half a century ago by Brezhnev and Nixon. One can talk about the confrontation of two systems, but the leaders of the early 1970s laid absolutely concrete — in pieces — foundations of nuclear deterrence and non-proliferation, against the general backdrop of détente, the Vietnam War ended, the Helsinki Accords of 1975 were signed, and the docking of «Soyuz» and «Apollo» took place.
A «deal», like a peace agreement, must be prepared. There was no preparation of documents or even a joint communiqué. The Russian delegation went to Alaska empty-handed. As the American delegation met them empty-handed. And accordingly, the conversation was short and in its form and content — telephonic. Or we really don't know something. And no one is going to inform about this something.
Anchorage — not Reykjavik
Nevertheless — what were they expecting? First of all, a truce, complete or at least in the air. A truce and freezing — temporary or for years — of the line of contact. As a prelude to normal, tough, long, detailed negotiations. Even if about the «Korean option», but substantive negotiations. The mass loss of life would have ceased, creating a normal backdrop for normal diplomacy. This is the main thing that did not happen. And this — from the point of view of the interests of the world community — is a fiasco.
Someone compared Anchorage to Reykjavik — the negotiations between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in November 1986 in Iceland. Then, too, there were high expectations, and the meeting also did not end with concrete agreements. But this is a historical aberration, conditioned by psychological moments — that is, the anticipation of peace. Everything was different then: the conversations were more concrete, and there was a genuine desire for peace from the Soviet side. The USA represented the entire West, while in Anchorage, Trump represented, rather, himself. What can be said about the level of the first persons, can the scales of personalities even be compared?
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump during a press conference at Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Alaska, August 16, 2025. Photo: kremlin.ru
Putin's «victory»? Yes, his personal, as an autocrat who wanted to continue military actions and was confident that he could advance further in the imperial «return» of «our lands», victory. In this sense, Lavrov's sweatshirt with the inscription «USSR» had a deeply symbolic meaning — it was no longer a «language of gestures», but a language of concepts, a statement of position, and in such a way that everyone could see. With simultaneous hope for money from Trump. But what happened — is a defeat for Russia as a country. Economic, psychological, political, social. Once again, taxpayers' money will go to military purposes, and the nation will be fed ideological clichés about a malicious Europe. This is not the end of Putin's isolation: he remains isolated from the West; he still cannot sufficiently profit from his outdated and sanctioned oil and gas model; he has the status of a pariah, as, unfortunately, do Russia itself and the Russians.
Trump was terribly unwilling to disappoint Putin. He looked tired and even indifferent. He had a clear desire, as he said, to shift specific issues of war and peace onto the shoulders of Europeans and Vladimir Zelensky himself.
Geography of «friendship»
Trump wants economic and business deals. But if contracts go through now, it will be financing Putin — every investment has not only a purely economic but also a political component. Moreover, even discussions on these topics did not take place. Putin brought a team of five people to Anchorage: two diplomats — Ushakov and Lavrov, three officials with an economic background — Finance Minister Siluanov, «fixer» Dmitriev, Defense Minister Belousov, economist-director. Economists were not involved in this meeting, which was slightly longer than the ritual talks of Medinsky's group with the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul.
Putin did much to give the trip a symbolic meaning — friendship with the United States. This is important. And although it is more about «chemistry» with Trump specifically, rather than with the USA as such, contact is established and, at least, there is hope to avoid some new Cuban Missile Crisis. Putin seems to be at war with the West (Europe plus Britain), but not with the USA.
The geographical point in the context of «friendship» was, of course, not chosen by chance. In Magadan, the president laid flowers at the memorial to the pilots of the Alaska-Siberia air route, who ferried American planes to the USSR under lend-lease. A deliberately pro-American symbolic step. While Britain is now considered an enemy and no one remembers the large-scale and heroic British Arctic convoys — the Kremlin has a selective historical state memory. Putin also laid flowers at the graves of Soviet soldiers — pilots and sailors who received planes and ships under the same lend-lease — at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base. This is undoubtedly a break in the matrix of anti-Americanism from the main anti-Americanist. But the same Magadan — one of the capitals of the GULAG, and this is also Russian history, to which the Kremlin pays so much attention. It would have been a good chance, since Putin ended up at this point, to pay tribute to compatriots — victims of repression. Of course, this was not done: those repressed by Stalin — direct predecessors of today's regime opponents.
Vladimir Putin during the laying of flowers at the graves of Soviet soldiers at the memorial cemetery «Fort Richardson» in Alaska, August 16, 2025. Photo: Sergey Bobylev / RIA Novosti
Putin has once again bought time to continue the SMO — this is the main outcome of the event, which can only conditionally be called «negotiations» and «summit», even not by formal criteria. The rest — the mere theoretical probability of a slow movement towards substantive peace negotiations and vague promises and discussions about «the conflict may end by Christmas». As we know, even Christmas in Russia is celebrated not when it is in the rest of the world...
The organization of a tripartite meeting, with Zelensky, which Trump promised, is, of course, impossible in the mode of fireside chats, as happened in Alaska. Not only are the conditions not created for it, but they seem even more distant. Trump as a peacemaker and «world policeman» has not yet materialized, except perhaps attributing to himself the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty. He enters history with his failures and absurd tariff policy. The situation is set back at best to the beginning of 2025, even expectations and hopes need to be formed anew. Putin and Trump suffered a victory. The world — in the sense of peace, and in the sense of world — lost.
* Andrey Kolesnikov is considered a «foreign agent» by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.