Chris Bambery dissents from the media consensus view of the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska

The Independent: ‘Putin humiliated Trump’.

Sky News: ‘Trump is the clear loser’.

The Telegraph: ‘Putin got exactly what he wanted from Trump.’

The Economist: ‘Donald Trump’s gift to Vladimir Putin.’

The UK mainstream media is in a lather in the aftermath of the summit meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska. Their American cousins were even more dismissive of the whole thing. Most concentrated on the fact Putin was welcomed with a red carpet, a motorcade and all the trappings of a state visit and that neither leader would take questions afterwards.

What did they expect? Imagine that when Trump visits Russia to continue the talks, he didn’t get the red carpet treatment. The same journalists would be spitting blood.

The truth is that along with much of Washington and Europe, they did not want these talks. They want war to the last Ukrainian, believing in a pipedream of a Ukrainian victory, flying in the face of all evidence.

For them, Trump should have demanded Putin agree to an immediate ceasefire, break off talks immediately if he wouldn’t and impose the threatened extra sanctions. That rather ignored the little fact that the Russians had repeatedly said in advance of these talks that they would not accept a ceasefire, because they wanted a wider peace deal.

All of this reflects the neocon agenda, in place since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which wants to parcel up Russia and to degrade it so that it ceases to be a power. It is essentially a continuation of the old Cold War.

Rather than seizing the opportunity, back in 1991 and its aftermath, to re-build relations, the US and the West rebuffed the Russians. They also broke a pledge made to the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, by beginning a programme of Nato expansion, extending the alliance to the frontiers of Russia from the Arctic to the Black Sea. When Vladimir Putin said that allowing Ukraine and Georgia to join Nato would be a red line that should not be crossed, he was ignored.

The war in Ukraine did not begin with Putin’s criminal invasion. It began in 2013 with highly contested elections which shifted the country into the Western camp. Ukraine officially ended its neutral status in December 2014, voting to pursue membership in Nato. This decision came after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine ended in a ceasefire with Ukraine promising to respect the rights of the Russian population. That remained a dead letter and the ceasefire allowed both countries to catch breath and re-arm.

A road to peace?

Returning to US and Western politicians and mainstream media, from the start of this war, they have repeatedly predicted Russia’s military and economic collapse, ignoring facts such as that Ukraine has been running out of troops on the ground and of artillery shells, and that Russia has been relentlessly advancing westwards.

Putin made it clear before travelling to Alaska that he would not agree to a ceasefire. He is winning, so why should he want a repeat of another pause in the fighting? This would allow Ukraine to re-build its military capacity, so that it can restart the war later.

The Russians stated that they wanted an overall peace plan dealing not just with the Ukraine war but one that could reshape relations between it and the US. On Ukraine, they wished for a guarantee of its neutrality and recognition that the four oblasts with Russian majorities would be part of the Russian Federation.

Beyond that, they wanted to discuss Nato expansion, renewing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty which Trump withdraw from in 2019 in his first term, and rebuilding diplomatic and economic ties between the US and Russia. Both sides brought teams with economic and investment ministers, and which were light on military figures.

So what happened in Anchorage? Well we don’t really know. At a brief press conference, Trump said progress was made but ‘we didn’t get there’ after three hours of talks, while Vladimir Putin said he was ‘sincerely interested’ in ending the war: neither took questions from the media.

After speaking to European leaders on his flight home, Trump stated: ‘It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement.’ In an update on his Truth Social platform, Trump says this would end the war and be more substantial than ‘a mere Ceasefire Agreement’.

A new nuclear treaty would be especially welcome as Trump has escalated matters by re-introducing US nuclear weapons to Europe, including Britain. We can’t return to 1991, but this is surely the chance to create a new relationship between the world’s two biggest nuclear states.

On Monday, Ukraine’s Zelensky flies to Washington to meet Trump. That might throw more light on where matters stand. Zelensky did not get a much-needed ceasefire and will be downcast that these talks are not only going to continue but are addressing wider issues.

In the interests of humanity, this meatgrinder of a war must be ended, not halted, and we need to bring Russia in from the cold. Of course, the neocons and their mouthpieces are not concerned about humanity.