The big, beautiful summit that could have been an email is over and Ukraine got no closer to a durable peace. If anything, the principal outcome thus far is optical: a staged return of Russia from its years-long diplomatic isolation. The red-carpet treatment of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska played out powerfully not only on Russian television and social media but globally. 

In a brief interview with Fox News after the summit, United States President Donald Trump opined that his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky “should make a deal,” while insisting that “if they don’t want to do it, then you’re never going to have peace.” Zelensky will meet the U.S. President on Monday to clarify the exact peace or ceasefire terms that Trump discussed behind closed doors with Putin

So why is the President who boasts of ending five wars and vowed to finish this one within 24 hours still unable to do so? Because the Kremlin’s sphere-of-influence obsession, boundless appetite and domestic problems cannot be treated with quick fixes. From the outset, Putin’s strategic aim was less about annexing Ukrainian land than re-establishing Russia as a global power and a dominion in Europe. 

Still, it is hard to act like one with Russia’s modest economic capacity, comparable to that of Italy. So, the last resort is the projection of force and its nuclear arsenal. That is why, on the eve of the summit, analysts discovered that Moscow was preparing to test a new cruise missile equipped with a nuclear warhead and a nuclear propulsion system. For a long time, Russians could comfort themselves as they suffered under international........

© The Moscow Times