Preliminary conclusions about what the stagecraft in Alaska produced, or rather failed to deliver.
By Bohdan Cherniawski for the Kyiv Post | August 16th, 2025
The Alaska summit looked like a breakthrough – for Russia.
The White House and the Kremlin leaders sat down to discuss Europe’s security, while Ukraine was left outside the room. The message was unmistakable: Kyiv’s fate was being argued over its head, and President Volodymyr Zelensky was reduced to protesting from the sidelines.
For Vladimir Putin, simply showing up was a victory. He received the red-carpet treatment, the military flyovers, the photo-op handshake – the optics of parity with the United States. At the press conference, he even claimed that he and Donald Trump had reached an “understanding” on Ukraine.
He never explained what that meant, but the line alone was enough to spin back home: Russia as co-author of Europe’s future.
The talks yielded no signed deals, but the signals were troubling.
But the choreography cracked. Planned events were abruptly scrapped, and both sides left early. The press conference, meant to include questions from journalists, was reduced to a scripted monologue. The dinner and follow-up talks were canceled outright. What was billed as a show of strength collapsed into a hasty retreat.
Even those inside the room sensed it. Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich observed: “The way that it felt in the room was not good. It did not seem like things went well. And it seemed like Putin came in and steamrolled, got right into what he wanted to say and got his photo next to the president and then left.”
The talks yielded no signed deals, but the signals were troubling. Trump floated the idea of offering Ukraine security guarantees outside NATO. On the surface, it sounded like protection. In reality, it echoed one of Moscow’s oldest demands: Keep Ukraine out of the alliance. Simply putting the option on the table handed Putin a propaganda victory and chipped away at Kyiv’s most important strategic goal.
Nothing concrete emerged. No ceasefire. No frozen lines. No binding documents.
Trump insisted he would not decide Ukraine’s sovereignty or territory in its absence. That stopped short of bargaining Ukraine away. But the bigger truth was clear: The summit gave Russia the stage, while Ukraine had no voice.
Putin’s talk of “neighbors” and “brothers” is the most poisonous lie of all. Neighbors do not invade. Brothers do not massacre children. Only an invader calls himself a brother while brandishing a knife.
Putin used the moment to recycle his favorite myths. He spoke of Russian place names in Alaska, “brotherly” ties with Ukrainians, and monuments from World War II. He wrapped conquest in nostalgia, as if memory could excuse murder. But this was not heritage. It was theater – and the curtain was soaked in blood.
The reality is unambiguous: Russia’s war has nothing to do with “security.” It is not won by reducing Mariupol to rubble or filling mass graves in Bucha. Safety is not found in the missiles that pound Odesa and Kharkiv. These are not acts of defense. They are the crimes of an empire trying to erase its neighbor. To call them anything else is obscene.
The smiles in Alaska were no less fraudulent. Putin praised “dialogue” while his troops shelled Ukrainians on their own territory. He stood on American soil as if a statesman, while behaving at home as an invader. This is not diplomacy, is theater meant to disguise a war of conquest.
Peace will not come from Western restraint or carefully staged summits. Peace will come only when Russia leaves every inch of Ukrainian land it has stolen.
And let us be clear: The Russian leader does not seek peace. He seeks recognition of conquest. He wants the world to accept that borders can be erased, that sovereignty is conditional. That is not peace – it is surrender dressed up as statesmanship. Europe once learned where appeasement leads. To repeat that mistake now would not end this war. It would spread it.
Putin’s talk of “neighbors” and “brothers” is the most poisonous lie of all. Neighbors do not invade. Brothers do not massacre children. Only an invader calls himself a brother while brandishing a knife.
The true lesson of history is not found in Alaska’s toponyms or Soviet memorials. It lies in what happens when free nations fail to confront a tyrant. Ukraine is fighting not only for its own survival, but for the principle that the future cannot be stolen by those who fear it.
That is why Alaska matters. The summit gave Putin the illusion of legitimacy, the stage to rehearse his fables, and the photo he wanted beside an American president. Ukraine, meanwhile, was left to answer from outside the door. Even without treaties signed or borders redrawn, the imbalance matters. In diplomacy, appearances become ammunition.
The lesson is urgent: Ukraine must never again be a guest in discussions about its own survival. Every summit without Kyiv and representatives of its genuine European supporters is not a path to peace, but a rehearsal for betrayal. And that is why this war will not end with Putin’s nostalgia or Trump’s theatrics.
It will end with valiant and undefeated Ukraine setting the terms, and not external bullies.
Bohdan Cherniawski is a Canadian military veteran, historian, and writer focused on Eastern European political history, intelligence, and global health in conflict zones.
