Summit neighbors on the date line - which separates yesterday from tomorrow

On August 15, 2025, Vladimir Putin flew from Magadan to the American military base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska. While he was talking to Donald Trump on the red carpet, the most expensive American strategic bomber B-2 Spirit accompanied by four F-35 fighter jets flew over their heads.

With that improvised air parade, the American side demonstrated a personal greeting to the guest, as interpreted by the distinguished military pilot, Major General Vladimir Popov, in an interview with the Petrograd newspaper "Argumenti", or perhaps that is how the message "Make America Great Again" was sent, as some civilians think.

When Putin and Trump got off the plane and met, Putin reportedly said, "Good afternoon, dear neighbor. It's very nice to see you in good health and alive."

"Yes, Vladimir Putin is clearly haunted by the story of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. And that is understandable: almost no one remembers it anymore, including Donald Trump himself," Kommersant's special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov will write.

With the statement in which he attached symbolic meaning to geographical facts, Putin later stated in front of journalists that Russia and the USA are separated by oceans, and that they are neighbors separated only by the Bering Strait, so that even there, between the Russian and American islands, there are only four kilometers crossed by the date line - which separates yesterday from tomorrow.

The choice of Alaska ("Russian America"), which Russia sold to America in 1867 after the Crimean War (1853–56) for two cents per hectare, or 7,2 million dollars (today's value of about 140 to 160 billion dollars), also had a symbolic character. Some critics called the transaction Seward's Freezer or Seward's Folly, after then-Secretary of State Williard Seward, who made the purchase. But that was before gold was discovered in the Klondike, and later gas and oil.

Putin presented the head of the Orthodox Church in America for Alaska, Archbishop Alexei, with an icon of St. Herman, who preached Orthodoxy among volunteers in the 18th century. And the Orthodox from Alaska prayed for peace before the summit.

Greeting each other with smiles - while lip readers interpreted that both of them said the word "bomb" (?!) - Putin headed for his aura, and Trump for the Cadillac. But Trump, apparently, suggested at the last minute that they go together. Putin agreed.

"Negotiations have already begun!" exclaimed one of the journalists on the runway after both presidents entered the armored "beast" of the American leader. They spoke without an interpreter, in English. Many journalists were waiting to hear about what. They crammed into a hall of that military base, where soldiers were standing at every corner, mostly not knowing who to let go, but showing delight at seeing their president for the first time.

And then Putin!

"Moreover, it was the first time I saw the military in complete control of the situation in the hall. Even at the press conference of the State Committee for Emergency Situations in August 1991 in Moscow, it seemed as if one could breathe more deeply," writes Andrey Kolesnikov. Journalists, American on one side of the hall and Russian on the other, shouted questions to the newsmakers, without any particular importance, and the newsmakers answered reluctantly or, more often, not at all.

In not saying anything about what was happening, according to Kolesnikov, the veteran diplomat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who came to Anchorage wearing a T-shirt with the inscription USSR, was unsurpassed, which angered German commentators the most. Adhering to his rule that diplomacy loves silence, Mr. Lavrov almost did not react to the pats on the back and to the shouts of journalists thirsty for comments about what is happening, whether there will be talks in an "extended format", as planned, and whether there will be lunch, with such knowledgeable looks as if they were hungry themselves.

Some journalists, by the way, reported that in Anchorage they encountered a warm reception and cold showers in makeshift overcrowded accommodations, and that they were eating tuna salad from yesterday.

"We had lunch, yes...", Sergey Lavrov shrugged his shoulders. It was completely unclear what he meant: whether it was a planned work lunch or whether he simply managed to grab something somewhere.

AS IF NOTHING HAPPENED

During the summit, on Friday 15 August, lunch was obviously cancelled. On the menu was a simple three-course meal. After green salad, filet mignon and Alaska halibut olympia (halibut olympia, flounder pie in mayonnaise, sour cream and parmesan sauce). Crème brûlée should have been served for dessert.

A scandal broke out because of that dishonored lunch menu. Namely, the American National Public Radio revealed that one of the staff in the printer of the hotel room had forgotten several sheets with the menu, schedule and meeting places, as well as phone numbers and instructions to pronounce the Russian president's name Poo-teen. The officials of the White House later accused the journalists of that public non-profit radio that they betrayed the secret and threatened the security and that it is therefore good that Trump canceled their donations.

Appearing before the media, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump made statements about peace worthy of the Miss World pageant. After that, they talked for a few more minutes behind the scenes, so the American president flew to Washington, and Vladimir Putin stayed to lay flowers on the graves of 110 Soviet pilots and technicians who died from 1942 to 1945 during training, plane crashes or flying through snowstorms on the ALSIB (Alaska-Siberia) route. They transported aircraft and other equipment as part of the US Lend-Lease program, but for a long time they were unknown to the general public, because they were part of a military cooperation that was later, in the Cold War, suppressed from the collective consciousness.

The mentioned special correspondent of "Kommersant" Andrei Kolesnikov finally asked himself: What happened? And what didn't happen?

"There was no lunch, as it should have been.

There was no enthusiasm.

There was no disappointment.

It's like nothing happened."

And in Anchorage, perhaps, something important happened after all...

photo: ap photo

NEGOTIATION MARATHON

The summit in Anchorage was reached after a series of failed attempts (see tables) to stop the war in Ukraine at the green table, the bloodiest on European soil in the period when the sinusoid of American-Russian relations lowered to the level of the Cold War. This is shown by a cursory look at the failed negotiations and diplomatic "creative interpretations of reality and principles".

The 1997 Black Sea Fleet Agreement allowed Russia to keep its ships in Sevastopol on lease until 2017. Ukrainian President Yushchenko has hinted that he intends to cancel that fleet agreement. However, when Yushchenko left the stage, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the then newly elected Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovych signed on April 21, 2010 the so-called Kharkiv Agreement to extend the term of stationing the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in Crimea for the next 25 years, after 2017, that is, until 2042. The Russians had no intention of leaving Sevastopol, the key naval center of Russia, whose port the Black Sea Fleet used for more than two centuries, yet since the founding of Sevastopol in 1783, nor the Crimean peninsula, which Nikita Khrushchev transferred from Russian to Ukrainian administration in 1954.

The next failed agreement concerned the change of regime during the Maidan Revolution in 2014. The guarantors of the agreement signed on February 21 of that year between the then President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and representatives of the opposition were the foreign ministers of three EU countries: Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Germany), Radoslav Sikorski (Poland) and Laurent Fabius (France). Vladimir Lukin, the Russian envoy, also participated in the talks, but he did not sign the agreement, although he was present during the negotiations. The agreement provided for the limitation of presidential powers by returning to the 2004 constitution, the formation of a government of national unity, extraordinary presidential elections by the end of 2014, the withdrawal of security forces from the center of Kyiv and the handing over of illegal weapons by protesters.

The agreement was not implemented - just one day later, Yanukovych fled from Kiev, and then via Crimea to Russia, and the parliament replaced him, with the support of protesters and Western allies. Steinmeier was reserved, but later supported the new Ukrainian authorities, pointing out that Yanukovych had not fulfilled his obligations by leaving power.

After the collapse of the agreement, Sikorski showed "diplomatic creativity in interpreting reality" saying that "there were no guarantees for implementation" (!). Russia evaluated that argument as if the West supported the coup.

After heavy fighting in Donbass in August 2014 and heavy losses of Ukrainian forces near Ilivaysk in September 2014, the Minsk 1 ceasefire agreement was signed. After new conflicts that culminated in Debaltsevo, Minsk 2015 was signed in 2. Those peace agreements, under the auspices of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine (the so-called Normandy format), provided for a ceasefire and a special status for Donbass, but were implemented with constant violations and diplomatic maneuvers. Ukraine has argued that Russia has not relinquished control over the separatists, is not withdrawing troops or closing the border, and Russian officials have argued that Kiev refuses to implement the political part of the agreement (special status for Donbass, elections, constitutional reforms in Ukraine) because federalization would weaken central authority and open up Russian influence.

In an interview with the German "Zeit" in December 2022, German Chancellor Angela Merkel subsequently admitted: "The Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time. It was much weaker then. Today it is a different country." Vladimir Putin stated that he felt "betrayed" because he believed that the negotiations were sincere and for peace. For Moscow, this recognition was proof that from the beginning the West used "Minsk 1 and 2" only as a tactic to buy time so that Ukraine could prepare for war against Russia.

After Russia's attack on Ukraine, the first serious negotiations will be held in Istanbul in March 2022. Ukraine's neutrality is discussed, but no agreement is reached, although Putin claims that it was initialed.

At that time, Denis Kireyev, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation, who had previously provided information about the Russian plan to seize the airport, was killed. The Ukrainian security service liquidated him by mistake.

Boris Johnson advises Zelenskiy not to agree to the compromise that, according to Putin's version, they had accepted in principle. Western countries supply Ukraine with weapons and introduce new sanctions against Russia.

The war continues. The Russians are retreating from the north of Ukraine and in the south from the city of Kherson and its surroundings on the right bank of the Dnieper. On the territory of the LNR and the DNR and in the part of Kherson and Zaporozhye, which it conquered, Russia is organizing a referendum on joining the parent country. Then the Russian Duma adopts changes to the Russian Constitution and expands the territory of Russia with newly conquered areas.

After the start of the war in February 2022, Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea became a key point of international negotiations. Due to the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports, especially Odesa, grain exports have almost completely stopped, which has caused a global food crisis, especially in countries that depend on imports from Ukraine.

In July 2022, with the mediation of Turkey and the UN, the Initiative Agreement on the Safe Export of Grain was signed in Istanbul. The agreement allowed Ukraine to export grain from three Black Sea ports, under international supervision. Russia repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the agreement because the export of Russian fertilizers was not enabled, which it did in mid-2023, after several renewals and then termination of the agreement. After that, Ukraine tries to use alternative routes - river, railway and Danube ports - with the risks brought by Russian attacks and minefields in the Black Sea.

A new attempt at negotiations in Istanbul followed on June 2, 2025. An agreement was reached on humanitarian issues: on the exchange of bodies of the dead, prisoners and wounded.

The draft of the Russian negotiating memorandum provided for the recognition of the annexed territories and the neutrality of Ukraine and its withdrawal from NATO membership, but with firm security guarantees. Ukraine insists that its state integrity and integrity be respected, and insists that cessation of hostilities is a prerequisite for negotiations with Russia. He demands that the negotiations continue with direct talks between Putin and Zelensky, Putin does not refuse in principle, but claims that there are no conditions for that meeting yet.

CONFIDENTIAL MESSAGES

Trump takes the initiative and sends Steve Witkoff, his longtime ally, to Moscow, whom he appointed as a special envoy for Russia and Ukraine.

Steve Witkoff, an American businessman in the field of real estate without institutional authority, diplomatic experience and formal education in the field, since the beginning of 2025, held talks with Vladimir Putin several times in Moscow and St. Petersburg for several hours each, which were presented as "constructive" and "useful". The impression of Putin's intentions that Stephen Witkoff gained in the Kremlin on August 6 was probably decisive for the initiation of negotiations at the summit.

Journalists, again American, perked up when the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, Russian financial manager "business-political mediator" between Washington and Moscow, Vladimir Putin's envoy with a reputation in international business circles, appeared in that hall in Anchorage. He was educated in the United States, at Stanford and Harvard, where he completed an economics and MBA program. He worked at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, and then returned to Russia where, since 2011, he has been the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which was key to attracting foreign investment and promoting the "Sputnik V" vaccine. He was born in 1975 in Kiev. Western services and media often see him as an "oligarch-diplomat", a man who has direct access to Putin. Since 2022, he has been under US and EU sanctions, but in February 2025 he was appointed as Putin's special envoy for foreign investment and economic cooperation.

To the loud questions of the journalists, he only smiled distractedly and did not say anything. And God forbid he would say anything!

Finally, judging by the reporter's reports, Anchorage was particularly listening to see if Yuri Viktorovich Ushakov, Vladimir Putin's adviser on foreign affairs, Russian ambassador to the USA from 1998 to 2008, would say anything about the negotiations, able to maintain channels of communication with the State Department and Congress even at a time when political relations were tense, as it was during periods of serious crises (NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999, US invasion of Iraq 2003, NATO expansion to the Baltic countries) and during the temporary strategic rapprochement after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Ushakov was a key figure in the preparation of strategic negotiations, on strategic arms reduction agreements (SORT, 2002), on the Putin-Bush summit in Bratislava (2005). Western sources point out that he, with the reputation of a "bridge of cooperation" between Russia and the USA, functions as a leading negotiator and mediator through formal and informal channels in the current negotiations with the USA, and as one of those who favors maintaining a constructive dialogue with the USA.

Before arriving in Anchorage, Trump stated that "probably in the first two minutes" he would know if Putin was serious about the pursuit of peace, and perhaps the envoys had told him something before that. The profiles of the mentioned negotiators show that peace negotiations are taken seriously on both the Russian and American sides. This impression is supported by the fact that there are no generals in the first team, because the end of the war is too serious a matter to be entrusted to the generals.

At this summit, in the presence of only three people from each side, Putin and Trump talked for more than two hours about Ukraine, its territorial integrity, the fate of Donbass and Crimea, but also about the overall American-Russian relations, which in three decades have reached their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

Speaking first, which American journalists reproached Trump for, Putin praised the American involvement in ending the war, which, he said, was also painful for the Russians because they are at war with a brotherly nation and that he hoped that the Europeans and "those in Kiev" would not interfere.

Trump described the talks as "constructive", assessed that progress had been made, but "there is no deal until a deal is reached", adding that he now needs to make some important phone calls.

At the end of the summit on August 15, 2025 in Anchorage, Putin greeted Trump with "Next time in Moscow!" The latter replied that the idea was good, although he would have a fire at home.

The continuation followed in Washington. On Sunday, August 19, 2025, Trump already spoke with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, as stated in the White House announcement, about "steps towards restoring security stability and ending the conflict." Zelensky was dressed in black, just like last time when Trump kicked him out of the White House, told him he was rude and called him a loser, but now Zelensky, at least in front of the cameras, although exhausted, seemed to be in a better mood.

Photo: AP photo

As "Time" and "People" magazines write, he handed Trump a letter that his wife Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, addressed to Melania Trump, expressing gratitude for her appeal to President Putin to protect children affected by the war in Ukraine.

Zelenski: "It's not for you, but for your wife!"

Trump: "I would really like to read it!"

After the conversation with Zelensky, Trump spoke with seven European leaders: with Prime Minister of Great Britain Kiera Starmer, Prime Minister of Italy Giorgio Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Presidents of Finland and France Alexander Stubb and Emmanuel Macron, then with Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte and Head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.

According to the "Wall Street Journal", Trump and European leaders have agreed that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will take the lead on a new working group for drafting proposals for security guarantees for Ukraine. The group includes NATO representatives and advisers from several countries.

RIA Novosti reports that the security package could include four elements: military presence, anti-aircraft defense, arms deliveries and ceasefire monitoring mechanisms. And the Russians (Lavrov) have been saying until now that the Europeans cannot be peacekeepers in Ukraine because they are also participants in the war.

After the meeting with Zelensky, and all the guests at once, Trump went to call Vladimir Putin. After a forty-minute phone conversation, he informed the Europeans and Ukrainians, and then published an official message on social networks.

Information is leaking from the White House that Trump wants a very quick meeting - that in a week Putin and Zelensky shake hands in his presence. The RIA Novosti commentator notes that there are quite "small" obstacles on the way to the meeting.

The Kremlin's comments were not so optimistic - the wording of President Ushakov's assistant was diplomatically more cautious:

"Putin and Trump talked about the idea of ​​studying the possibility of raising the level of representatives of Russia and Ukraine in the negotiations..."

...

RF-USA presidential summits 1990-2025.

9. September , Helsinki

J. V. Bush senior - M. Gorbachev
Joint statement on the resolution of the Gulf crisis and the strengthening of cooperation

31. January 1. February 1992, New York / Camp David

J. V. Bush senior - B. Yeltsin
After the Cold War - the beginnings of American-Russian diplomacy

January 1993, Moscow

J. V. Bush senior - B. Yeltsin
START II signed (but not in force)

April 1993, Vancouver

B. Clinton – B. Yeltsin
The initiation of bilateral relations in the post-Soviet period

March 1997, Helsinki

Clinton – Yeltsin
START III

1 2. September , Moscow

B. Clinton – B. Yeltsin
Agreement on exchange of information on missile launches - reduction of nuclear tensions

Meitheamh 2000, Moscow

B. Clinton – V. Putin
First meeting with Putin; topic: arms control and regions (Chechnya)

16. June , Ljubljana

George Bush Jr. - V. Putin
First meeting: defense and NATO - Bush said he "saw the soul" of Putin

February 2005, Bratislava

George Bush Jr. - V. Putin
Talks about democracy, North Korea, Iran and European stability

April 2010, Prague

B. Obama – D. Medvedev
The new START treaty on nuclear warheads was signed

16. July 2018, Helsinki

D. Trump – V. Putin
Trump accepted Putin's arguments about the non-involvement of the Russians in
American elections

16. June , Geneva

J. Biden – V. Putin
Talks on nuclear weapons and cyber security; without
concrete resolutions

15. August 2025, Anchorage, Alaska

D. Trump – V. Putin

The summit in the context of the war in Ukraine with the announcement of the continuation of negotiations

Summit context: The sinusoid of relations between atomic superpowers

Since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, US-Russian relations have gone through cycles of rapprochement, estrangement, and open opposition.

The 1994 Budapest Memorandum (which Russia later interpreted as a political rather than legally binding declaration) was the key point: Ukraine renounces its nuclear arsenal in exchange for guarantees of sovereignty.

The culmination comes in 1999, when Yevgeny Primakov over the Atlantic orders the official plane Ilyushin Il-96 (more precisely, Il-96-300PU) which he flew on a several-day visit to the USA, to return to Moscow due to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Boris Yeltsin then warns Bill Clinton that Russia has a nuclear arsenal and will not tolerate interference in its internal affairs.

In 2000, Putin offered cooperation after September 11, but the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and support for "color revolutions" worsened relations.

In Munich in 2007, Putin openly criticized the USA. The intervention in Georgia in 2008 marks the beginning of direct conflicts.

Obama's 2009 "reset" initiative symbolically failed when Hillary Clinton presented Lavrov with a red button on which the word reset was mistakenly translated not as perezagruzka (perezagruska) but as peregruzka (peregruska, overload) - a fulfilling prophecy. Agreements are falling apart one after the other: INF, Open Skies...

Biden was the initiator of the 2021 Democracy Summit against the authoritarian regimes of Russia and China. By August 2025, more than 18.000 individual sanctions have been introduced against Russia, of which 16.000 after the invasion of Ukraine. Russia "becomes immune to sanctions" and strengthens cooperation with the countries of the Global South, especially China, India and Brazil, that is, with the "world majority".

The 2025 Anchorage Summit may herald the end of one and the beginning of a new phase in this oscillatory relationship.