Ideology and personal idiosyncrasy play a large part in the dynamics of the Trump administration, alongside the urge to create spectacle and dominate the news cycle. That was all on display during Friday’s Trump-Putin summit in Alaska. But another recurring theme was also glaringly obvious: the US president’s submissive sycophancy towards autocrats in general and the Russian leader in particular.
The aftermath has left Ukraine facing the prospect of a peace plan that looks very like capitulation. The day after the meeting, Trump broke with Kyiv and its European allies by backing Putin’s proposal for a sweeping settlement based on Ukraine ceding territory it still controls. That is not a path to peace but the validation of conquest.
Before the meeting, Trump had insisted a ceasefire was his urgent priority. That stance has been abandoned. He now believes a rapid deal is possible if Ukraine hands over the remainder of the Donbas, including areas not occupied by Russian troops. In exchange, Putin has offered a ceasefire along current battle lines and a written promise never to strike Ukraine or Europe again. History offers ample evidence of the hollowness of such promises.
Only days ago, Trump was threatening new economic penalties should Putin walk away from Alaska without a deal. Those threats have now been shelved. Once again, the US has moved at Putin’s pace, not its own.
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European leaders have been scrambling to adjust to the new reality. France, Germany and the UK reaffirmed their stance that there could be no discussion of peace until the killing stops. Privately, officials expressed disbelief at Trump’s claim that “all” had agreed to leapfrog a ceasefire.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy was excluded from the Anchorage talks, watching from afar as Trump indulged Putin’s maximalist demands.
European leaders including Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen will now join Zelenskiy for Monday’s meeting with Trump in Washington. Their task is clear but daunting: to re-anchor American policy in the shared Western strategy that Trump has just casually discarded. Their efforts will be especially focused on clarifying the vague and deeply unsatisfactory statements on security guarantees that have emanated from Washington over the past 48 hours.
Trump’s bowing of the knee to Putin undermines Western unity, weakens Ukraine’s negotiating hand and signals to Moscow that aggression yields rewards. That is not diplomacy in the service of peace. It is theatre in the service of vanity. The cost will not be measured in news headlines but in Ukrainian lives and in the further erosion of trust between the US and its allies.
What unfolded in Alaska was not statesmanship. It was appeasement.
