Lenin’s aphorism — “there are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen” — has seldom felt more apt. Since the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska three months ago, global energy geopolitics has convulsed in a series of dizzying turns that have left analysts and investors alike struggling to keep pace. The meeting that was hailed as a bold attempt to initiate peace in Europe, 'reset' US-Russia relations and stabilise energy markets has instead opened a Pandora’s box of further US sanctions on Russia and recriminations of Putin by Trump.
After raising hopes of possible peace for Ukraine when President Trump announced that he would soon be meeting his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin in Budapest, he then announced just a few days later that work on a second summit had halted. The abrupt cancellation of the proposed Budapest meeting suggests that US-Russia diplomacy has collapsed for the foreseeable future. Instead, the US seems to have adopted the maximalist demands of its European allies and is once again calling for immediate unconditional ceasefire. The US-Russia confrontational temperature was raised another notch by the ramping up of US sanctions on Russia that went well beyond what the previous Biden administration had invoked.
The Alaska Gambit
At the Alaska summit, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin struck what appeared to be a pragmatic understanding. Trump, reverting to his businessman instincts, signalled that Washington would support negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict on terms acknowledging battlefield realities. This meant, in plain language,
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Something that is a glaring omission in this report is that all western nations are signed up to the UN’s Agenda 2030 for sustainable development – as our Councils are too. That is surely the driving force for all this lunacy.
The disparity between the West’s propaganda, and what actually happened in Anchorage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnV-SfNhfao
Neutral states adjacent to Russia 2021: Finland, Sweden.
Neutral states adjacent to Russia by March 2024, after Russian 2022 invasion of Ukraine?
That would be zero.
The U.S. strategy of weakening Russia as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been an outstanding success…..and Russia’s economic situation is only going one way: even worse.
Serfdom beckons….
Anchorage was where Trump openly acknowledged that an “unconditional cease-fire” is fairyland, since the Russians had been fooled by ceasefires before, notably at Minsk (2015) where the West used it as a ruse to re-arm the Kiev regime’s forces.
Putin re-iterated this – what has been conveyed to Trump by his Moscow envoy Steve Witkoff & others time and again. Yet once back home, Trump is mentally battered by the Neo-Cons in his own administration – General Kellog, Marco Rubio et. al. and turned and snarled at “Vladimir”, as he so sweetly addressed him at the Anchorage press conference.
As Mr Doshi rightly says, President Putin plays the long game, just like his predecessors who stopped another aggression from the west when it got as deep into Russia as Stalingrad, after which Kursk, the greatest tank battle in history, finally finished the second attempt (after Napoleon) to “inflict a strategic defeat on Russia” – the modern Neo-Cons’ wet dream.
There is NOTHING THEY CAN DO, short of out & out war with Russia, which as even Biden recognised, means World War Three, and nuclear strikes. The unipolar world enjoyed by the US since the Cold War ended is now morphing… Read more »
Your conclusion in the last couple of lines is very well put across.
The article tries to mention Pokrovsk which is the last remaining ‘fortress city’ in Donetsk which has been the focus of fighting for over a year and the levels of action along the whole frontline ebb and flow so the claim about a new offensive following the Alaska talks is nonsense. People in the West have still not grasped that there are no massive offensives or attacks and that the warfare model has changed in the last 2 years. Small groups of troops, even down to just two, inflitrate the UAF lines where there are big gaps. They can act as fire control for artillery, drones and air attack to clear out UAF troops and move forward. Currently it is Rasputitza on the frontline and so all movement is limited until the ground freezes and the Winter fighting season arrives. The expectation is Povrovsk will fall during November and could trigger a breakout on a larger scale and the remainder of Donetsk could be liberated early next year.
“Is Trump Embracing Europe’s Energy Suicide?”
Assisted dying?
It’s a wonder to behold, the Commentariat still take everything that Trump says at face value. After more then eight years they should have learned to heed what he does not what he says, the former usually the opposite of the latter.
Trump knows there is nothing he can do to force Russia into peace negotiations, Putin knows he knows, and the little green loonie knows this too.
Trump painted himself into a corner by promising instant peace in the ongoing Ukraine-Russia theatre – I say on-going because it has been on-going since before the 14th Century.
He clearly did not understand the situation and although he realises he can do nothing, by keep mouthing off, when eventually the war ends because Russua will have what it wants and Ukraine simply cannot continue, Trump can declare he played a pivotal part.
‘Russia cannot demobilize without mass unemployment, cannot continue the war without fiscal ruin, and cannot maintain current spending without draining national reserves…
….export revenues from oil and oil products dropped 12% in the first six months of 2025. This creates what the economist calls “an unfavorable combination of factors.”
“Maybe they will repeat what they did last year,”….Russia’s combination approach of printing money, tapping reserves, and creative accounting that covered deficits in late 2024.
Russia has secretly forced banks to lend $210-250 billion to military contractors—shadow financing matching the official defense budget. This hidden debt pushed the banking system toward crisis.
After roughly 12-18 months, Moscow faces a binary choice: get significant economic support from abroad (China, with massive strings attached) or reduce military spending, which means reducing the war’s intensity.’
With oil prices forecast to head below $50/barrel in 2026, serfdom beckons….
That strikes me as nonsens from start to finish.
The previous US government made these so-called “maximalist demands” wrt to the situation in Ukraine and forced everyone else into line by threats of sanctions against each and every private entity with any business relation to Russia. This previous government or rather, the party which previously governed, still controls all of its European stooges which still faithfully try to execute all its policies, from Ukraine over mass immigration and climate savery to the denial of human sex. This is all US-originated bullshit and met with staunch opposition in Europe it’s just that this opposition matters just as much as it mattered during COVID.
The Trump administrations needs to tackle its domestic political enemies at home instead of trying to beat up a bunch of European poodles faithfully going through the motions which are still being demanded from them. Otherwise, it’s again going to become an episode of superficial sanity while the American descent into madness was just paused for a short while.
No idea what your getting at!
Trump ought to be president of Europe too and we’d all be better off!
We’d probably be better off when he was actually the president of the USA than just the figurehead of a larger warring tribe there with limited real-world influence.