Russia was proclaimed to have won a diplomatic triumph on Saturday when U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed Vladimir Putin’s preferred master plan for the end of the war in Ukraine at a glitzy summit in Alaska, a move that has unsettled European allies and raised fears about Kyiv being excluded from peace talks.
Shift in U.S. Policy
Breaking decades of U.S. and Western practice, Trump announced Washington no longer would demand a ceasefire as a prerequisite for peace negotiations. Instead, the president stood behind Moscow’s decades-long practice of negotiating a “comprehensive peace agreement” even as Russian forces continue to exert military pressure on Ukrainian territory.
Russian officials promptly declared victory, with state media terming the summit proof that Putin’s strategy had been justified internationally.
Putin’s Demands on the Table
Putin reiterated once more that Russia’s terms for peace are the acknowledgment of its sovereignty over Donetsk and Luhansk, along with overall security guarantees limiting Ukraine’s relationships with the West, such as its military alliances. While Trump did not agree with these specifics, his acceptance of Russia’s negotiation-first policy pleased Moscow sufficiently to term the summit a turning point.
Ukrainian Concerns
In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that any deal not directly involving Ukraine risked “undermining sovereignty.” He reaffirmed plans to travel to Washington next week to talk with Trump about a trilateral format with European allies.
European Alarm
European leaders reacted with alarm, characterizing Trump’s change as a “strategic concession” that hurts Ukraine’s standing and splits Western cohesion. Diplomats across Brussels and Berlin cautioned that Russia can use the new American position to make territorial gains irreversible and reorganize Europe’s security architecture to its advantage.
Symbolism and Optics
Alaska summit, choreographed in military pomp as a flyby by fighter aircraft, gave Putin a symbolic soapbox to demonstrate equality with Washington. Moscow’s regained global status was shown as much by the red-carpet reception as by Russian state television’s highlighted.
Commentators say that the summit has given Russia a political boost even in the absence of concrete agreements. For Ukraine, the challenge will be to avoid allowing its interests to become diluted as Washington and Moscow try out a new diplomatic relationship.
Trump’s embracing of Putin’s negotiating approach is the most theatrical U.S. policy shift on the Ukraine war since fighting broke out in 2022 celebrated in Moscow as a triumph, but met with nervousness in Kyiv and with burning frustration across Europe.