Get audio access with any FP subscription. Subscribe Now ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Get audio access with any FP subscription.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Russia’s War in Ukraine

Understanding the conflict four years on.

Last August, Russia triumphantly presented a summit with the United States in Alaska as a breakthrough in its war to conquer Ukraine, later waxing poetic about the “spirit of Anchorage.”

Almost a year later, that spirit is gone. On Wednesday, top Russian foreign-policy official Yuri Ushakov told Russian media: “I don’t know about the ‘spirit of Anchorage.’ I’ve never used that phrase.”

Last August, Russia triumphantly presented a summit with the United States in Alaska as a breakthrough in its war to conquer Ukraine, later waxing poetic about the “spirit of Anchorage.”

Almost a year later, that spirit is gone. On Wednesday, top Russian foreign-policy official Yuri Ushakov told Russian media: “I don’t know about the ‘spirit of Anchorage.’ I’ve never used that phrase.”

Ukraine, meanwhile, has been increasingly and publicly sour on U.S. mediation, even as its military efforts start to make gains against Russia—setting up the two sides for yet more protracted war.

On the U.S. side, negotiations have been led first by Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer and friend of U.S. President Donald Trump, and later jointly by Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

The Kremlin initially appeared willing to woo the Witkoff team, with Witkoff traveling to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin personally six times for........

© Foreign Policy