In February 2025, senior US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia to discuss what was unthinkable during the previous US administration: normalisation of relations, economic cooperation and a potential roadmap to end the Ukraine war. That improbable dialogue set the stage for the historic US–Russia summit last week in Anchorage, Alaska, where President Trump welcomed President Putin with the red-carpet treatment. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s mercurial style, the Anchorage meeting may yet prove to be a geopolitical turning point, reshaping not only the outlook for NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine but also the architecture of global energy.
For the first time in many years, the prospect of Washington and Moscow resuming normal diplomatic and economic relations is within reach. And with it comes the tantalising possibility of an energy renaissance: a world no longer constrained by anti-Russia sanctions or by the West’s ideological war on fossil fuels.
From Strident Rhetoric to Realpolitik
Until Anchorage, the chorus from Brussels and Kyiv was uncompromising. European leaders and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded that Russia return to 1991 borders, pay reparations and grant NATO membership to Ukraine. But as Russian advances on the battlefront eroded the Ukrainian military’s morale and capacity – Ukrainian public support for the war effort has collapsed, according to a widely cited Gallup poll – those maximalist demands are delusional.
Trump, ever the dealmaker, quickly shifted the conversation and put paid to the incessant calls from the EU and Ukraine for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire by Russia.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The Alaska summit illustrated the weakness of Russia, now a client state of China.
The success of the U.S. strategy to weaken Russia laid the groundwork, forcing Putin towards a rapprochement with the U.S.A.
Russia is doomed, either through peace or with war.
Russia occupies less of Ukraine now than it did immediately after it’s invasion.
But Putin nevertheless will not stop.
‘Czech Premier Fiala said: “Russian ambitions do not stop at the borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.“Even if some kind of ceasefire is achieved now, which we all undoubtedly hope for, if the right steps are not taken, Russia will be ready for further expansion within a few years.’
Why? Putin, a sick man, has nothing to lose.
Sadly you don’t stop either.
A ceasefire is a Euriopean wet dream. You claim to be able to read Putin’s mind, and you seem to be alled to other self-proclaimed Putin mind readers, is there anything you or they have divined which suggests a ceasefire is even a long shot?
And what makes you think Putin is any sicker than other elderly leaders?
‘The report said a large group of doctors including a thyroid cancer surgeon had accompanied Putin on his trips to his residence in the resort city of Sochi from 2016-2019.
The Russian investigative outlet Proekt matched the dates of Putin’s official visits to Sochi or unexplained disappearances from public view with local hotel accommodation contracts published on the government procurement website to make the connection. An average of five doctors had accompanied Putin in 2016-17 and nine doctors in 2019, it said.’
The Moscow Times
So Putin has nothing to lose, will not stop, no serious peace talks, no ceasefire…..and, all the while, the U.S. strategy makes Russia weaker…..
‘Oil prices slumped on Tuesday morning, despite developments around the war in Ukraine prompting concerns about disruption to Russia’s supply.’
Luckily for us, Britain is opting out of the new global re-industrialisation based on cheap, reliable fossil fuels as Ed Miliband bravely destroys our country and its economy with his ludicrous obsession for saving a planet that is not under any threat. Hooray for Mad Ed Miliband
My Ed don’t need no goddamn Ruskies nor no goddamn Yanks, he gone done and got himself a third way, he’s one clever SOB and y’all better do good and listen to him! Save the Planet! Hoorah!
Mad Ed is the Marxist progeny of his Marxist father and is continuing his good work of ruining Britain. Looking at the saft gromit smile on his face you would not suspect him of such evil intent. But every minister of this Labour government is doing his or her best to speed up the ruin of Britain.
The West deliberately refused Russia’s overtures to join Nato and be integrated into the Westerncentric Atlanicist EU.
The US/West needed an enemy to make even more money for their military industrial complex and to expand US hegemony and the US led Unipolar world.
Demonizing and vilifying Russia (and China) at every opportunity with false flags and a rabid media created the perfect scenario.
Russia has been far too naive and are finally waking up to the fact that they will never be accepted by the US/West.
This US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine will mean Russia, China and the rest of the BRICS+/SCO countries will now form their own Multipolar, rules based, new world order which will hopefully end US manufactured conflicts, US hegemony, US exploitation and violence, the US dollar and petrodollar, the EU and the Euro much quicker than would have happened if the US hadn’t made the mistake of engineering violent events in Ukraine in an attempt to weaken Russia.
The US under Trump may take a more pragmatic approach and become trading partners with Russia to drive a wedge between Russia and China.
> The US under Trump may take a more pragmatic approach and become trading partners with Russia to drive a wedge between Russia and China.
Perhaps. Been tried before by previous US Administrations. Hopefully some learnings have been remembered.