The city of Anchorage in the US State of Alaska hosted the first US-Russian summit meeting in the second term of US President Donald Trump on 15 August.
It was the fourth summit bringing together Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2017 when Trump started his first term in office (2017-2021). Just for the record, the three previous summits all took place in foreign countries – Hamburg in Germany in July 2017, Hanoi in Vietnam in November 2017, and Helsinki in Finland in July 2018.
The last time a US-Russian summit took place on US soil was in 2007 when former president George W. Bush hosted Putin.
The world, particularly European countries and Ukraine, saw the Anchorage Summit from the perspective of the war in Ukraine. They were not off the mark in doing so, even if the summit was not solely about the future of Ukraine or how to bring an end to the war between Russian and Ukrainian forces. It was a summit intended to reset the overall bilateral relations between the US and Russia.
Going over the list of participants on both sides could shed light on the motives behind it, which are not all necessarily linked to Ukraine. The US delegation included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Ratcliff, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff David Caine.
The Russian delegation included more or less their Russian counterparts, including Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Chief of the Russian Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev, and Uri Ushakov, Foreign Policy advisor to Putin.
The composition of the two delegations that participated in the summit meeting shows that both presidents wanted the Anchorage Summit to reset the overall course of US and Russian bilateral relations in almost all its aspects, from the strategic to the political, military, economic and commercial and including the question of the US sanctions on Russia, slapped on primarily by the administration of former president Joe Biden (2021-2025).
It should not be a surprise if not all of the political commentary and speculation that preceded the Anchorage face-to-face meeting between the US and Russian presidents was focused on Ukraine. Without exception, the commentary was alarmist in nature, warning against American concessions to Russia at the expense of Ukrainian interests, especially since Trump had already brought up the idea of “land swaps” between Ukraine and Russia in various statements and interviews preceding the Anchorage Summit meeting.
Most of the commentary in the US media and by foreign policy pundits in Washington compared the experienced Putin, a former intelligence officer with the former Soviet KGB, with Trump, who was accused of losing patience with political and intelligence briefings.
At Anchorage, there were two summit meetings. The one that was flashed on TV screens across the world was where a one-on-one meeting took place in the “Beast,” the official Cadillac limousine of the US president. No one expected, in terms of protocol, Putin to ride in the Beast with Trump. However, this is what happened, and no one knows what was discussed during this presidential ride and what topics were brought up.
Maybe we will never know, unless future developments shed light on the meeting in this respect. But even if the official summit at Anchorage did not end with an announcement of a ceasefire in Ukraine, an outcome that should not be surprising, it still paved the road to another three-way summit bringing together the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. If such a meeting takes place, it could be a good omen for Ukraine.
European and Ukrainian reactions to the Anchorage Summit were mostly positive after Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to brief him on the results of the summit as far as the situation in Ukraine is concerned. The fact that Trump, after his summit meeting with Putin, expressed the US’ willingness to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in the context of a peace deal reassured Europe and Ukraine, even if such US guarantees would be outside the NATO Charter.
The White House announced last weekend that Trump will hold a meeting with Zelenskyy and European leaders on 18 August at the White House to agree on joint steps towards peace in Ukraine in the light of his talks with the Russian president on 15 August.
The European leaders that are expected to attend include German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
The US website Politico described the talks as “crunch.”
In this regard, Trump set the tone of his Monday meeting with the European leaders on his Truth Social. He wrote that the Ukrainian president can end the war with Russia “almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” adding, in capital letters, “No going Into NATO by Ukraine.”
Although it is too early to say whether the Anchorage Summit will bring peace and security to Ukraine and Europe, it will still be seen as a significant attempt on the part of Washington and Moscow to reset US-Russian relations for the years to come.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 August, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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