Vladimir Putin chairs a security council meeting at the Kremlin, in Moscow, on August 8, 2025. SERGEI ILYIN / AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin had good reason to be pleased. Without having laid out the slightest promise of a ceasefire, he has been invited to a high-profile face-to-face meeting with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, to be held in Alaska on Friday, August 15. The prospect of this summit has excited pro-Kremlin commentators, who have been thrilled by Russia's return to favor on the international stage. For them, it represents the prelude to the sanctions being lifted, especially on energy, and absolution being granted for the war crimes the Russian army has committed in Ukraine since February 24, 2022.
According to Dmitry Suslov, an expert at the Valdai Club think tank, convening such a "full-scale summit" demonstrates a "qualitative shift in Russian-American relations." He explained that the goal is to erase the "accumulated negative baggage" and set Russian-American relations up on a "qualitatively new level." Suslov said the meeting will allow Washington "to end the hybrid war that began with [Joe] Biden's arrival to power in the United States [in 2021] and even to end the confrontation that has existed since the Obama era," speaking to the news agency TASS on Sunday, August 10.
