When Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15, it will be their first one-on-one summit since the controversial 2018 Helsinki meeting — a session so awkward that former White House Russia adviser Fiona Hill considered pulling a fire alarm to stop it.
The stakes now are far higher. In Helsinki, the agenda was Syria and Russian election interference. This time, it’s Europe’s largest war since 1945. Yet, Trump has already given Putin an early victory: agreeing to meet without Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky present, abandoning his earlier condition for a three-way summit.
No ceasefire, no halt to missile strikes, no concessions from Moscow — just an unconditional invitation to negotiate Ukraine’s future without Ukrainians in the room.
For Putin, this format is ideal. He prefers dealing directly with Washington, treating Ukraine as a Western puppet rather than a sovereign state. His playbook from Helsinki still applies: meet alone with Trump and a Russian translator, shut out US officials who might intervene, and offer Trump “wins” tied to lucrative economic cooperation.
Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev, a Harvard-educated former Goldman Sachs banker, is skilled at dangling big-money resource projects to lure American partners. In Putin’s dream scenario, Trump would accept a Kremlin-crafted peace plan, then jointly impose it on Ukraine.
The problem for Putin? His own overreach. His demands — which go beyond keeping occupied territory to seizing more land — may be too much even for Trump to endorse.
Still, US officials heading to Alaska might want to make sure the fire alarms are in working order. Just in case history threatens to repeat itself.
