Alaska was a start, but Putin is still up to his old tricks — and Trump knows it

As the people of Ukraine know, neighborliness is not among Putin’s great qualities.

Still, it was with a reference to the US and Russia being neighbors that Putin kicked off his conversation with President Trump in Alaska yesterday.

On the red carpet at the airport he apparently said to Trump: “Good afternoon, dear neighbor. Very good to see you in good health and to see you alive.”

When relaying this at the joint press conference later on, the Russian president commented about his own earlier remarks: “I think that is very neighborly.”

Of course the two leaders were only meeting because of Putin’s lack of neighborly qualities.

Since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 there have been no face-to-face meetings between the leaders of Russia and the US.

Partly because Putin has been unwilling to stop the war he started. And partly because there has been very little for the two to agree on.

Putin’s invasion has led to more than a million deaths.

Perhaps just on his own side.

Figures vary as to the number of Ukrainians killed since the conflict began.

Trump came into office saying that the war would never have started if he had been the US President in 2022.

And yesterday Putin was careful to stress that this was a point of agreement between the two sides.

He talked about the unresponsiveness of the Biden administration to the warnings he claims to have given them.

Still, Trump was careful not to fall for the flattery.

Throughout the joint press appearance, while Putin was speaking, Trump maintained his careful, thoughtful listening face.

He knows that even a smile in the wrong place can be deadly when dealing with a negotiating partner like Putin.

Not just because of the man standing beside him on the stage, but for the world’s media camped out in front of them both, many of whom would love to revive the “Putin puppet” memes about Trump that ran so wild from 2016 to 2020.

Aware that every gesture, word, and handshake would be pored over relentlessly, Trump set up the meeting and controlled it on his own terms.

Putin is a famous manipulator of meetings with world leaders.

He likes to wrong-foot people or make himself look like the bigger man.

On the tarmac Trump was careful to make sure that he didn’t greet Putin too warmly, and also not to be too austere.

Trump was in Alaska to get a deal done.

Whether Putin was there for the same thing they were there to see.

But in an expert piece of stagecraft an American B-2 stealth bomber flew overhead as Trump and Putin walked to the first photo opportunity.

Trump stopped to look up and acknowledge the place, as though to say, “Gee — who’d have thought it. One of those US planes that just took out the Iranian nuclear reactors. Remember them?”

For two-and-a-half hours the leaders were shut behind closed doors and the fact that they both came out together was a signal in itself.

Trump had earlier suggested that if they didn’t both appear after the meeting then it was because there was nothing to talk about.

Trump-watchers remember the Hanoi meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in 2019.

Then, too, there was huge build up and high expectations.

But when Trump realized there was no deal to be had with the North Korean dictator, he just walked away.

That didn’t happen yesterday.

And for every who believes that jaw-jaw is better than war-war that has to be a good thing.

Trump’s own remarks at the joint press conference were friendly and formal.

But he acknowledged that while the talks were a start there was no deal.

Because there were still a number of small things and “one which is the most significant” that the two sides had not agreed on.

Presumably that one big thing was whether or not Putin should be allowed to keep the territory of Ukraine that his forces have already annexed.

This is a point of contention not only for the Ukrainian people, but for America´s NATO allies, who are united in the belief that giving Putin something of Ukraine will not satisfy his appetite for land, but only encourage it.

There are those at home in the US who say that this is fever-dream of war-mongers. But America’s allies in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Finland, Sweden and nearly all of the rest of Europe fear it.

And for them this is not some theoretical, grand-strategy game.

It is a matter of whether their countries will be at existential risk of invasion by Putin next.

Trump had a careful game to balance in Alaska.

He managed to encourage Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

And he did get Putin to say that he is “sincerely interested” in ending the conflict. Something that Putin described as “a tragedy.”

As though his land invasion was like a typhoon or a tsunami.

Just something that happens in nature, but can be cleaned up afterwards.

But it was a start.

Trump told the world that the talks had been constructive.

At the end of the press conference he called Putin “Vladimir” and Putin suggested that perhaps the next meeting would be in Moscow.

“I could see it possibly happening,” said Trump, jokily.

And wherever it happens, if the two leaders can have further meetings which can help bring an end to the war then that could be a good thing.

But Trump needs to keep in mind something else Putin said when they weren’t behind closed doors.

During his lengthy remarks (much longer than Trump’s), Putin talked about how much Russia and Ukraine have in common and what bonds and roots they share.

Trump should remember that. Putin can pretend to have the best connection with you.

And he’ll still try to flatten you.