Star Metro - In high-stakes summit, Trump, not Putin, budges

In the end, it looks like it was Trump, not Putin, who budged.

Putin, visibly delighted as he stepped foot in the West for the first time since ordering the 2022 invasion, made no apparent concession at the talks at an Alaska air base.

In a brief joint media appearance with Trump, who unusually took no questions, Putin again spoke of addressing the "root causes" of the Ukraine war and warned Kyiv and Europeans against disrupting "emerging progress" with the United States, the top defender of Ukraine under Trump's predecessor Joe Biden.

Trump, who bills himself as a master negotiator, acknowledged there was "no deal" but said there were "very few" areas of disagreement, although he was vague on what they were.

But posting hours later on his Truth Social account, Trump said he wanted Russia and Ukraine to "go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war" and not a ceasefire.

Trump's own administration had been pushing a ceasefire for months, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signing on after intense pressure from Trump. Putin had repeatedly rejected truce offers and kept up attacks on Ukraine, seeking to maximize battlefield advantage.

- Putin again woos Trump -

Trump had vowed to be firm with Putin after wide criticism of the US president's cowed appearance before him at a 2018 summit in Helsinki.

But Putin again found ways to flatter and trigger Trump, who in his second term constantly speaks unprompted about his many grievances.

Putin told Trump before the cameras that there would have been no war -- which Putin himself launched -- if Trump were president in 2022 rather than Biden, a frequent Trump talking point.

Trump bemoaned the effect on ties with Putin of what he again called the "hoax" of the findings by US intelligence that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help him.

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity after the summit, Trump said that "one of the most interesting things" Putin told him was about... the US voting system.

Trump said approvingly that Putin -- who has held power in Russia since 2000 and was declared the winner of elections last year with 88 percent of the vote -- told him of the risks of mail-in ballots and said of Trump's 2020 loss to Biden, "You won that election by so much."

US election authorities and experts have found no evidence of wide-scale fraud from mail-in ballots in the 2020 election, which Trump, uniquely in US history, refused to concede.

- 'Shameful' or wait and see? -

Trump's Democratic rivals voiced outrage that the summit secured no breakthrough and said it only served to normalize Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

"By quite literally rolling out the red carpet, Trump has legitimized Russia's aggression and whitewashed Putin's war crimes. It's shameful," said Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Experts said it was too early to write off the summit completely, as much is not known about what was discussed behind closed doors. Trump will meet Zelensky on Monday at the White House.

Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, which backs US restraint, said that Trump's critics have been proven wrong in saying he would "give Ukraine to Putin or force Kyiv to accept surrender."

"His focus has been and remains getting Putin to the negotiating table. Mr. Trump deserves credit rather than condemnation for his efforts so far," she said.

But Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said an initial read was that "Putin scored a victory by showing up, and Trump's limited words and tense demeanor left Putin to control the narrative."

"For a man so attached to showmanship, Trump unusually allowed Putin to be the star of what should have been the Trump show," she said.

S.Clark--SMC