Let’s make this simple.
After the red carpets were rolled away and the B-2 bomber returned to its hangar, here’s what the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska in August produced: further Russian escalation of war crimes in Ukraine. Put clearly: Vladimir Putin answered Donald Trump’s disdain for pointless death with more unprovoked bloodletting.
The US president went to Alaska having promised “severe consequences” if his Russian counterpart didn’t agree to a cease-fire in Ukraine. Since the summit, Putin has launched hundreds of drones and missiles—targeting civilian infrastructure and regions far from the front lines, while killing and injuring dozens of Ukrainians. An August 28 attack on Kyiv killed more than twenty civilians, including four children, and wounded forty-eight more people.
Less than a week after the Alaska summit, an August 21 Russian strike destroyed a US electronics and consumer goods factory near the Hungarian border in western Ukraine. That was no misfire. It was contempt. The next day, Trump saidthat he was “not happy about it,” and that he had threatened sanctions if peace didn’t advance within two weeks. Those two weeks are nearly over.
Still, Putin has not paid a price—even as he has shrugged off an apparent commitment to Trump that he would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and continue to explore peace. Last week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that it’s clear the meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders won’t take place.
On the Monday following the Alaska summit, seven European leaders visited the White House, accompanying Zelenskyy. The aftermath of that meeting is still playing out, but the visit provided a clarifying pathway for common cause to stop Putin’s killing and expansionist ambition.
Voice of Ukraine 