Half-baked Alaska - geopolitical sketch

Putin and Trump - or Tart and Fart as I refer to this shameless pair of scoundrels - have had their summit or, as we say in Yorkshire, summat and nowt.  

Former KGB agent meets former estate agent - who would you sooner trust? Yes, the respective Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States of America have met - this time in Anchorage, Alaska, on a flying visit (two shits that pass in the night one might say) - and once again Putin has played Trump like a fiddle.

Initially, Trump seemed to be of the opinion that Alaska was in Russia, when even a cursory glance at a map shows it to be a US state. (Given how keen he seems to claim Canada, Greenland, Panama etc you'd think he'd know the fifty he's already got.) True, Alaska was once Russian but that was before 1867, when it was bought from Tsar Alexander II by President Andrew Jackson. This was hardly an auspicious start. Imagine Trump's withering scorn had that rudimentary mistake (or misspeak) been made by Joe Biden. When Trump's grasp of geography and history is so sadly deficient, we were left hoping he might prove better at diplomacy. Sadly, it was not to be.

For Putin, his trip will have been a PR gift. Imagine the impact in Russia of media relays of their President receiving a red carpet welcome from a clapping Trump. Putin even managed to hitch a lift in Trump's bomb-proof stretch limo, nicknamed 'the Beast', nipping in through the door opened for Trump, leaving a bemused-looking US President to share his official vehicle while Putin left his own Aurus idling on the tarmac.

You may recall that, before his inauguration, Trump promised to have the Russia-Ukraine conflict resolved on his first day in office. Seven months later (which must seem like a lifetime for Ukrainians) the summit in Alaska carried the strapline 'Pursuing Peace'. That didn't suggest we should expect a resolution any time soon and yesterday's farago proved it. As a smiling Putin flew back to Russia his parting words to Trump, delivered in perfect English, were "next time in Moscow". He may as well have said Kyiv.

Putin, having seized the initiative from the get-go, left Trump looking fazed by what had occurred. Putin had run rings round Trump and his team during the talks and, in his public (obviously pre-scripted) summing-up, neatly backed Trump into a diplomatic corner before departing with a spring in his step. "Useful and timely" was his assessment of the meeting. "Puzzling and perplexing" might have been Trump's honest reaction - were he not a stranger to honesty and a totally deluded narcissist. 

After this, poor Volodymyr Zelensky, who will be back in the White House again on Monday risking another ritual humiliation on behalf of his beleaguered nation, must be hoping Putin's renewed interest in Alaska, a former part of the Russian Empire, might take the heat off Ukraine.

Distraction could be his only hope now.
 

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