There is a hypothetical alternative version of the 12-minute joint press conference between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump where the leaders announced they had in fact reached an agreement and it was one that bargained away parts of a country not permitted entry to the negotiating room. 

It was what Volodymyr Zelenskyy had feared and what made the world nervous as Putin was welcomed to US soil with a red carpet and a ride in the presidential limousine.  

Donald Trump may have been outplayed in Alaska, but let's remember Vladimir Putin is the problem
By Emily Clark

GUS: BY NOW, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS BASED ON SHIT. I WAS GOING TO SAY SHIFTING SANDS, BUT IT'S DEFINIVELY SHIT... THE PROBLEM ISN'T PUTIN. THE PROBLEMS ARE THE WEST'S AND ITS NAZI NATO, THE AMERICAN DESIRE TO DESTROY RUSSIA SINCE 1917 AND THE WEST'S BAD FAITH... AT LEAST, TRUMP IS PAYING SOME ATTENTION AND HE KNOWS THAT RUSSIA IS WINNING (HAS WON) THIS CAPER AND ALL HE CAN DO IS ACCEPT RUSSIA'S DEMANDS, GET DEEPER IN TO SHIT OR HURT RUSSIA WITH SANCTIONS WHICH WILL DAMAGE AMERICA AND EUROPE FAR MORE THAN CHINA, INDIA AND RUSSIA... THIS IS A CHECK-MATE SITUATION. DESTROYING THE BOARDGAME WOULD ONLY LEAD TO WW3... TRUMP IS INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO KNOW ALL THIS... EMILY CLARK IS EL STUPIDO....

In the end, Trump didn't gain much of anything at the Alaska summit and while he didn't make that deal himself, he does appear to have now picked a side. 

Because what has been leaked and learned since is that Vladimir Putin issued somewhat of an offer to Zelenskyy. 

It's one that would see Russia take the Donbass. 

In one iteration of the suggestion from Putin circulating in US press, the Russian president reportedly offered a "written promise not to attack Ukraine or any European country again". He has broken similar promises in the past. 

As he has done in the past, Zelenskyy reportedly rejected the offer and, in the face of it, reiterated his terms for peace.

Unsurprisingly, the two men are a long way apart. 

But Trump now appears to be leaning on Zelenskyy to make a deal with Putin even if the terms haven't improved at all. 

The New York Times is reporting Trump told European leaders he now "supports a plan to end the war in Ukraine by ceding unconquered territory to the Russian invaders". 

It puts Zelenskyy in an impossible position and sends him back into the belly of Trump's White House under a tonne of pressure. 

The Ukrainian president will travel to Washington on Monday, local time, and while theoretically, he'll be on friendly territory, it really wasn't last time. 

In February, Zelenskyy was subjected to an explosive public confrontation at the hands of both Trump and Vice-President JD Vance. 

At that time, there was a sense Ukraine had lost the US, that the Western alliance backing the war-torn nation was not just on shaky ground, but that it was rupturing before our eyes. 

Earlier that month, Trump stood in front of the press and called Zelenskyy "a dictator". 

Now Zelenskyy must return to the bastion of American power and sit down to discuss ending the war in his country with the men who just went to Alaska and lost strategic ground to Putin themselves.

Zelenskyy's mission is as hard as ever. He must keep favour with Washington while handling an impatient Trump who wants any kind of a peace and a Nobel Peace Prize to go with it. 

It is hard to see how anything changes. 

Zelenskyy wants the war to end in a just way and, even if he was personally willing to compromise, any ceding of territory would violate the Ukrainian constitution. 

Trump just wants to be able to say the war is over and that it was his doing. 

But Vladimir Putin, he is playing a different game. It suits him to carry on. 

Andrew Weiss, Russia expert and vice-president of studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Putin was "creating a destroyed Ukraine".  

"A Ukraine that will be so battered that it will be very hard for Ukraine to, for example, create a military deterrent going forward against future waves of Russian aggression. It will be a very costly proposition for Western countries to keep Ukraine afloat," he said. 

"The Russian logic here is 'I Vladimir Putin have maximalist goals, but if I can't achieve them, I'm prepared to impose such a cost on Ukraine and its Western partners that it almost becomes not worth it to them to continue their support'. So it's kind of a heads, I win, tails, you lose situation." 

Any negotiations don't just need to convince Putin of the terms of any peace agreement, but also that there is a problem with the status quo at all. 

He does not have the same goals as the other players in his game and the longer the various iterations of meetings and summits and phone calls go on, the more his military grinds Ukraine down and the more territory it occupies.

Putin doesn't care if Trump is nice to him, he has seen it all before, as my colleague John Lyons wrote about this week.

What he cares about is his power, his dreams of a reunited empire and the money he needs to bankroll it. 

It was little more than a week ago that Trump was talking about heavier sanctions for Russia and extending secondary tariffs to its oil customers. He pulled the lever with India, but Russia has other customers who escaped. 

That is the type of leverage that could actually hurt Putin.

And yet out of the Alaska summit, the Russians seem less worried about losing an income stream and more delighted in what others might be available to them if US-Russia relations continue to improve. 

"There's only one thing Russia respects and that is leverage. They don't do things to be nice. And the United States policy, since the beginning of this administration, has actually reduced the leverage that was built up," Weiss said. 

In one afternoon on a subarctic air base, Trump gave up on his ambitions for a rapid ceasefire, freed Russia from the threat of further sanctions and, once again, brought Putin in from the diplomatic cold. 

Perhaps all these compromises will turn out to be a strategic master stroke, but what's more likely is Trump's desire to do a deal made him vulnerable to the former KGB agent who really doesn't negotiate. 

Raising the fundamental question of can you even strike a deal with Vladimir Putin, in particular one that he would honour, Weiss said "I think that is a very dubious proposition". 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-17/trump-putin-due-in-alaska-as-day-of-ukraine-summit-arrives/105657464

AS MENTIONED, THIS IS A DUBIOUS ARTICLE ON THE ABC... THE "EXPERT" CHOSEN (WEISS) TO MAKE THE POINTS IS OUT OF HIS MIND AND DUBIOUS BEYOND BELIEF... YOU CAN STRIKE A DEAL WITH PUTIN. HE IS 100 PER CENT TRUSTWORTHY. THE WEST IN CONTRAST HAS SHOWN MANY TIMES OVER THAT IT IS ZERO PER CENT TRUSTWORTHY AND PUTIN KNOWS...

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         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.