Saturday August 16, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC [Posted at 8:20 pm PT]
Synopsis and Analysis – by Mary P Brooke
Yesterday US President Donald J Trump hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin for a meeting in Alaska.
The meeting lasted nearly three hours. The press conference afterward was brief, during which Trump asked Putin to speak first. There were no questions allowed from media.
Ahead of the high-stakes meeting, Trump US president was indicating he’d be displeased if Russia did not agree to or propose a ceasefire.
After the meeting, Trump said there’s no deal until there’s a deal. Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of a ceasefire .. Putin is not of the inclination to show anything he would consider to be weakness.
“There was no mention of the term ceasefire,” said Michael Carpenter, a former U.S. ambassador and permanent representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
“There was obviously no agreement. I wasn’t expecting there to be an agreement because, frankly, all along I’ve been saying that the fundamentals don’t align here — namely that Russia wants the subjugation of Ukraine, and President Zelenskyy is not going to allow for the capitulation of his country.”
Putin’s war demands seem not to have changed: he wants no membership for Ukraine in NATO, no Western troops in Ukraine, and a cap on the size of the Ukrainian military. What gives him the right to make these demands can only be found in his belief that the former USSR must be restored.
Trump said after the Alaska meeting that a 3-way summit with the US, Ukraine and Russia will be among next steps. Trump has apparently invited Zelenskyy to Washington for a meeting on Monday.
Canada’s support:
Today Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a statement in support of Trump’s peace negotiation efforts. It was sent to media and posted in social media.
“The leadership of President Trump and the United States is creating the opportunity to end Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine,” said Carney in a statement released today, August 16.
“Robust and credible security guarantees are essential to any just and lasting peace,” wrote Carney.
“I welcome the openness of the United States to providing security guarantees as part of Coalition of the Willing’s efforts. Canada is coordinating closely with President Zelenskyy and our partners in the Coalition of the Willing to intensify our steadfast support for Ukraine and our shared commitment to its peace and security.”
The complexity of Trump and Putin:
Trump understands people who are motivated by power. By welcoming Putin somewhat back into the fold (after being ousted from the then-G8 in 2016 for having invaded Crimea), it allows for a possible defusing of the anger that probably fuels Putin’s imperalistic agenda toward Ukraine.
It’s like playing with fire. But it potentially helps to facilitate getting Putin into negotiations with Ukraine.
The democratic western world (led by the Coalition of the Willing – launched by the UK and France, and which Canada participates in) does not want to to Ukraine give up territory or lose the war that Russia started against Ukraine in 2022.
Where Trump might take negotiations with Putin after this is obviously unquantified. But generally speaking, the western world seems to have expressed a mix of hope and anticipation for what positive outcomes might come next.
The UK has said it will put peacekeeping troops on the ground in Ukraine if there is a ceasefire.
But even as Putin was meting with Trump in Alaska yesterday, bombs were being dropped by Russia within Ukraine.
Despite how trendy it might be to criticize Trump for the many things he is doing that displease or damage people and businesses, it’s becoming clear that he is the only leader with the sort of energy that Putin will engage with.
But as the saying goes, a leopard doesn’t change its spots. Putin will likely still want to keep on bombing and take more land. He seems non-plussed by economic sanctions imposed by the free world. Though some US experts observing the war at this 3.5-year mark think Russia may run out of economic steam for this war within the next year.
Returning the children:
President Donald Trump hand-delivered a letter from his wife, Melania, to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the peace summit in Alaska.
Melania Trump is a native of Slovenia, a former communist country in Southern Europe that has maintained hostile relations with Russia over the Kremlin’s ongoing invasion. Her recent letter is not the first time she has interceded on Ukraine’s behalf.
According to CNN, the chief of staff for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked US First Lady Melania Trump for calling on Russia’s President to save deported Ukrainian children.
“The return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia should be a key condition for any peace agreement,” Andriy Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, wrote in a post on social media Saturday, wrote CNN today online.
Yermak said he was “grateful” to Melania Trump for her letter to the Russian President, in which she called on the leader to “single-handedly restore” children’s “melodic laughter.”
More than 35,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted during the war and taken to over 100 locations in Russia and Russian-occupied territory, according to the Ukraine Conflict Observatory, an effort led by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab.
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