If you tuned in expecting Trump and Putin to emerge from Alaska holding hands, signing a ceasefire, and announcing “peace in our time,” you were always destined for disappointment. Heck, some commentators painted Trump as a modern-day Neville Chamberlain for seeking peace. But then again, David Axelrod couldn’t find his bare ass with either hand.

Diplomacy isn’t Netflix. It doesn’t deliver binge-worthy resolutions in 48 minutes. It’s a grind. It’s messy. It’s men in dark suits sitting in windowless rooms for hours, arguing over commas in draft communiqués.

So when the Trump–Putin summit wrapped yesterday without a ceasefire in Ukraine, the pearl-clutchers cried “failure.” Wrong. This was the opposite of failure. This was old-fashioned, bare-knuckle diplomacy—slow, deliberate, and strategically significant.

The Trump Pivot: From Ceasefire to Settlement

For months, Trump had been floating the idea of a simple ceasefire. Stop shooting, draw a line, then talk. Yesterday, he made a bigger move—shifting toward what Putin has wanted all along: a settlement.

That means Ukraine cedes territory to Russia in exchange for peace. It’s a gutsy pivot. And it’s the kind of pivot that only Trump—never bound by the Washington “blob”—could make.

Putin, naturally, welcomed the idea. It’s not a deal yet, but it’s the closest anyone has come to defining the “end state” of this war.

This is what the situation called for. Ukraine never had a chance of winning this war and is bleeding out. And whatever you think of Russia’s “feed them into the meat grinder” methods, they have far fewer casualties than the Ukrainians. This war must stop, and the West must admit they got it wrong. Victoria Nuland and her ilk should be brought up on charges of misappropriation of American resources.

The Zelenskyy Squeeze

After the summit, Trump phoned Zelenskyy. His message? “Get it done.”

Notice the subtlety here: Trump just reframed the entire conflict. Suddenly, it’s not about whether the U.S. and Russia can find common ground. It’s about whether Ukraine is willing to make a deal.

In other words, the burden shifts to Kyiv. Trump’s genius here is in repositioning the leverage. If Zelenskyy drags his feet, he’s not defying Putin—he’s defying Washington. And since DC is the money, Zelenskyy better comply. Even if Europe wants this mess to keep going - and it does - they have neither the capital nor the resources to sustain it. Ursula von der Leyen needs to reconcile those facts quickly.

Optics Matter, and Putin Knows It

Meanwhile, Putin got exactly what he wanted: symbolism.

Landing on U.S. soil for the first time in years, Trump greeted Putin in Alaska with full ceremonial honors. He laid flowers for Soviet soldiers, soaked in the cameras, and gave Russia a victory lap. Moscow’s state media is already playing the summit as proof of Putin’s return to the global stage.

Critics call this “optics.” They’re right. And that’s precisely the point. Statesmanship is theater. Optics shape narratives, and narratives shape power.

John McCain, among his many errors, once called Russia a “gas station dressed up as a country.” It’s an embarrassing understatement about a country that’s given the world Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, the Bolshoi, and caviar.

All Russia has craved is a seat at the table (and warm water ports). They should have a seat at the table of great nations for self-evident reasons.

The “Document Mishap”

Of course, no summit is complete without a touch of absurdity. In this case, it was a stack of summit papers left on a hotel printer in Alaska.

The White House swore they were nothing more than “lunch menus.” Whatever.

Still, the mishap added some comic relief to an otherwise heavyweight day. Think of it as diplomacy’s version of a wardrobe malfunction.

Beyond Ukraine: The Bigger Picture

The real significance of the summit wasn’t Ukraine at all.

It was the fact that two nuclear-armed giants—nations that together control the fate of the world’s strategic balance—sat down and talked.

They touched on economics. They touched on nuclear arms. They even hinted at a new strategic architecture that might emerge from these talks. Nothing concrete—yet. But the seeds were planted.

And Putin’s parting line, that the next summit might be in Moscow, was a genuine invitation. Trump said it’s “possible.”. That single word rattled Brussels more than any artillery barrage.

Wrap Up

Alaska didn’t give us a ceasefire. But here’s what it did:

• Trump proved he’s still the only American politician capable of bending the conversation toward reality, rather than fantasy.
  
  
• Putin proved he still knows how to play the long game, using symbolism, patience, and stagecraft to maximum effect.
  
  
• And the West was reminded—once again—that the adults in the room don’t wear EU lapel pins. They wear red ties and Russian tricolors.

The unrealistic expectations placed on this summit were laughable. Did people really think Trump and Putin would solve a decade-long conflict in a single afternoon in Anchorage? Please. This was their first meeting in years. The fact that it happened at all is the win.

Everything else—Ukraine, nuclear treaties, even where they’ll meet next—flows from that simple fact.

Trump and Putin showed what diplomacy is supposed to look like: two men with power, sitting down, cutting through noise, and starting the long march toward peace.

Not perfect. Not finished. But real. And a benefit to us all.