Escobar: What Really Happened In Alaska

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

The Putin–Trump meeting dropped some important veils. It revealed that Washington views Russia as a peer power, and that Europe is little more than a useful American tool…

Alaska was not only about Ukraine. Alaska was mostly about the world’s top two nuclear powers attempting to rebuild trust and apply the brakes on an out-of-control train in a mad high-speed rail dash towards nuclear confrontation. 

There were no assurances, given the volatile character of US President Donald Trump, who conceived the high-visibility meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. But a new paradigm may be in the works nonetheless. Russia has essentially been de facto recognized by the US as a peer power. That implies, at the very least, the return of high-level diplomacy where it is most needed. 

Meanwhile, Europe is dispatching a line-up of impotent leaders to Washington to kowtow in front of the Emperor.

The EU’s destiny is sealed: into the dustbin of geopolitical irrelevance.

What has been jointly decided by Trump, personally, and Putin, even before Moscow proposed charged-with-meaning Alaska as the summit venue, remains secret. There will be no leaks about the full content.  

Yet it’s quite significant that Trump himself rated Alaska as a 10 out of 10. 

The key takeaways, relayed by sources in Moscow with direct access to the Russian delegation, all the way to the 3-3 format (it was initially designed to be a 5-5, but other key members, such as Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, did provide their input), emphasize that:

“It was firmly put [by Putin] to stop all direct US weapon deliveries to Ukraine as a vital step towards the solution. Americans accepted the fact that it is necessary to dramatically decrease lethal shipments.”

After that happens, the ball swings to Europe’s court. The sources specify, in detail: 

“Out of the $80 billion Ukrainian budget, Ukraine itself provides less than around $20 billion. The National Bank of Ukraine says that they collect $62 billion in taxes alone, which is a hoax; with a population around 20 million, much more than one million of irreversible battlefield losses, a decimated industry and less than 70 percent of pre-Maidan territory under control that is simply impossible.” 

So Europe – as in the NATO/EU combo – has a serious dilemma: ‘Either support Ukraine financially, or militarily. But not both at the same time. Otherwise, the EU itself will collapse even faster.’ 

Now compare all of the above with arguably the key passage in one of Trump’s Truth Social posts: “It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.” 

Add to it the essential sauce provided by former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev:  

“The President of Russia personally and in detail presented to the US President our conditions for ending the conflict in Ukraine (…) Most importantly: both sides directly placed responsibility for achieving future results in negotiations on ending hostilities on Kiev and Europe.”

Talk about superpower convergence. The devil, of course, will be in the details. 

BRICS on the table in Alaska

In Alaska, Vladimir Putin was representing not only the Russian Federation, but BRICS as a whole. Even before the meeting with his US counterpart was announced to the world, Putin spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping. After all, it’s the Russia–China partnership that is writing the geostrategic script of this chapter of the New Great Game.     

Moreover, top BRICS leaders have been on a flurry of interconnected phone calls, leading to forge, in Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s assessment, a concerted BRICS front to counteract the Trump Tariff Wars. The Empire of Chaos, the Trump 2.0 version, is in a Hybrid War against BRICS, especially the Top Five: Russia, China, India, Brazil, and Iran. 

So Putin did achieve a minor victory in Alaska. Trump: “Tariffs on Russian oil buyers not needed for now (…) I may have to think about it in two to three weeks.” 

Even considering the predictable volatility, the pursuit of high-level dialogue with the US opens to the Russians a window to directly advance the interests of BRICS peers – including, for instance, Egypt and the UAE, blocked from further economic integration across Eurasia by the sanctions/tariff onslaught and the accompanying rampant Russophobia. 

None of the above, unfortunately, applies to Iran: The Zionist axis has an iron grip on every nook and cranny of Washington’s policies vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic.      

It’s clear that both Trump and Putin are playing a long game. Trump wants to get rid of the pesky two-bit actor in Kiev – but without applying old school US coup/regime-change tactics. In his mind, the only thing that really registers is future, possible, mega trade deals on Russian mineral wealth and the development of the Arctic. 

Putin also needs to manage domestic critics who won’t forgive any concessions. The desperate western media spin that he would offer freezing the front in Zaporozhye and Kherson in exchange for getting all of the Donetsk Republic is nonsense. That would go against the constitution of the Russian Federation. 

In addition, Putin needs to manage how US business would be allowed to enter two areas that are at the heart of federal priorities, and a matter of national security: the development of the Arctic and the Russian Far East. All that will be discussed in detail two weeks from now, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Once again, follow the money: Both oligarchies – in the US and Russia – want to go back to profitable business, pronto.

Lipstick on a defeated pig 

Putin, bolstered by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – the undisputed Man of the Match, with his CCCP fashion statement – finally had ample time, 150 minutes, to spell out, in detail, the underlying causes of Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) and lay out the rationale for long-term peace: Ukraine neutrality; neo-nazi militias and parties banned and dismantled; no more NATO expansion. 

Geopolitically, whatever may evolve from Alaska does not invalidate the fact that Moscow and Washington at least did manage to buy some strategic breathing space. That might yield even a new shot toward respect for both powers’ spheres of influence. 

So it’s no wonder the Atlanticist front, from Europe’s old money to the bling bling novices, is freaking out because Ukraine is a giant money laundering mechanism for Eurotrash politicos. The Kafkaesque EU machine has already bankrupted EU member-states and EU taxpayers – but anyway, that’s not Trump’s problem.   

Across Global Majority latitudes, Alaska displayed the fraying of Atlanticism in no uncertain terms – revealing that the US seeks a meek Europe subjugated to the strategy of tension, otherwise there’s no EU military surge, buying billions worth of over-priced American weapons with money it doesn’t have.

At the same time, despite covetous US oligarchic private designs on Russian business, what Washington’s puppet masters truly want is to break up Eurasia integration, and by implication every multilateral organization – BRICS, SCO – driven to design a new, multinodal world order. 

Of course, a NATO surrender – even as it is being strategically defeated, all across the spectrum – remains anathema. Trump, at best, is applying lipstick on a pig, trying to craft, with trademark fanfare, what could be sold as a Deep State exit strategy, toward the next Forever War.  

Putin, the Russian Security Council, BRICS, and the Global Majority, for that matter, harbor no illusions.  

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle or ZeroHedge.