Heavily covered by state media, the renewed dialogue between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump has given Russia renewed confidence, sparking such a wave of optimism that the Moscow Stock Exchange surged by 5% on Thursday, October 16, right after the two leaders’ phone call.
The prospect of a second bilateral summit, expected in the coming weeks in Budapest, delighted commentators. Fiodor Lukyanov, the Kremlin’s favored political scientist, was expecting «something specific.» «Apparently, there is a settlement plan that was already presented in Alaska, and for which precise parameters have been defined,» he explained in an email to Le Monde on Friday. Russian officials have repeated this interpretation, widely picked up by the press, convinced that a «confidential» settlement of the conflict in Ukraine was reached at the previous summit between Trump and Putin, without anyone else’s knowledge.
In propagandist jargon, this mysterious settlement is referred to as «the spirit of Anchorage» or «the positive aspects of Alaska.» This is a nod to the bilateral meeting held in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, when, eager to end the war in Ukraine, the US president rolled out the red carpet for his Russian counterpart, but received nothing in return. The summit ended abruptly, the scheduled lunch was canceled, and talks on major economic contracts, set for later in the day, were postponed.
You have 66.42% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
