Red Carpet, Sanctions Delay, and Trump’s Friendship: Expert Explains What Putin Gained in Alaska

Bohdan Popov, an expert from the “United Ukraine” think tank, explained that Trump’s strategy is to persuade Russia to make peace, while Putin’s goal is to do everything possible to get the U.S. to delay sanctions, Politeka reports.

He shared this insight on the program “Personality with Serhii Doiko.”

“Alaska turned out to be a serious diplomatic failure for Trump—at least publicly—if we don’t take into account behind-the-scenes agreements and what took place during and outside of the actual meeting. We saw a lot of media reports, a lot of speculation about what the Russian Federation might have said, how Trump might have responded, but in my opinion, none of it fully reflects reality,” Popov said.

As he explains, Russia understands that secondary sanctions could severely damage its economy and that things are not going smoothly on the front lines. On the other hand, the expert suggests, the collective Putin still lives in the illusion that “there are no losses,” because generals bring him rosy reports claiming everything is fine. But overall, Russia agreed to this meeting with the U.S. President in Alaska, he asserts, precisely to delay sanctions—and that alone is already a win for Putin.

“The second win is how terrible it looked in the media. American soldiers kneeling before a dictator, a terrorist. Let’s recall how Mao Zedong was received in the U.S. This was a horrifying image. The red carpet, the handshake where Putin’s hand was on top, by the way... So essentially, in Alaska, Trump came off looking weak,” Popov commented.

In the expert’s opinion, Trump still hasn’t fully abandoned his strategy of trying to negotiate with the Russian dictator, persuading him to agree to a quick end to the war—but this only leads to failure. Overall, he states, Trump is throwing around diplomatic cards and making serious concessions, so he doesn’t appear to be a serious player in this case. However, the expert notes, after the meeting in Washington, both Trump and Zelensky started to look like victors and global leaders.

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