Three and a half years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin emerged from global isolation thanks to Donald Trump, who often highlights the great relationship he has with the Kremlin autocrat, and achieved a significant political and diplomatic victory on the evening of Friday, August 15 in Alaska.
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Far from being the target of the threats that the President of the United States promised against his country if it did not stop its attacks against Ukraine, Putin is now closer to ending the war on his terms.
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A warm welcome for the Russian president
On February 24, 2022, Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. On August 15, 2025, Putin set foot on American soil for the first time in 10 years, and was received with all the pomp by Donald Trump, including a red carpet, and even traveled alongside the Republican president for 10 minutes in “The Beast”, the presidential limousine, from the airstrip to the building where the summit was held at Joint Base Elmendorf‑Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska.
The surprising gesture was very symbolic and marked a huge difference from the hostility that Trump himself, along with Vice President JD Vance, showed towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on February 28 of this year, where they cornered and criticized him in an embarrassing incident for American diplomacy.
Trump forgot about the sanctions against Russia
In the last month, Donald Trump talked about all kinds of sanctions for Russia if there was no ceasefire in the war in Ukraine. Even a few days before the Summit in Alaska, he said they would be “severe” after a conversation with Zelensky and the main European leaders.
The summit ended, there was no truce, and what did Trump say? "Due to what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about it now," he said on Friday afternoon in an interview after the meeting with Putin on his allied channel Fox News.
Putin imposes his proposal to keep the east of Ukraine.
But beyond symbolic gestures, which are important in international diplomacy, Vladimir Putin’s great victory is that Donald Trump supports his idea of ending the war in exchange for Ukraine giving up territory.
According to The New York Times, the President of the United States told European leaders that he believed peace could be achieved if Zelensky agreed to hand over the rest of the Donbass region to Russia, including areas not currently occupied by Russian troops.
Trump’s new stance, revealed during conversations with Zelensky and some European leaders on Saturday, would be a change from the urgent ceasefire option that the President of the United States had committed to, and would allow Russia to continue bombing and advancing in Ukraine.
What European leaders most feared was that Putin would convince Trump, and apparently, those fears came true.