Back from the USSR : When Putin met Trump in Alaska

So now Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have met again, this time in the former Russian territory of Alaska. As an outside observer, one could almost get the impression that time had turned back to the world before the end of the Cold War, when the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, still determined the fate of the world in haughty unity.

But the meeting was much more than a historical reminiscence. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wore a startling garment that he thought appropriate to the occasion, and to Putin’s purposes: a sweatshirt with “CCCP” (the Soviet Union’s Cyrillic acronym) emblazoned across the chest. If it was a joke, there was menace behind it.

Anyone who knows the longtime Russian foreign minister knows that he is not exactly known for his sense of humor or for overlooking details in the serious business of summit diplomacy. Lavrov’s sartorial choice was intentional; he intended to signal that Great Russia has returned to the top table of world affairs. The collapse of the USSR and its East European empire between 1989 and 1991 has been overcome. The empire is back, and it is reclaiming its lost territories.

The most important of these territories is of course Ukraine. As former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously pointed out in 1994, “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire.” Lavrov’s sweatshirt was not about the Cold War, but about the world as Russia intends it to be.

Trump’s invitation to Putin, an indicted war criminal, to meet on US soil endorsed that vision. Putin’s joint appearance with the US president, shaking hands on the red-carpeted tarmac and sharing a limousine, announced to the world that Russia – without having backed down one iota from its maximum demands about Ukraine’s future – was recognized once more as an equal partner. And with that, Putin broke more than three years of diplomatic isolation.

The message sent to Ukraine by the summit was also clear: even the US president accepts that the Russian empire is back. Don’t think you can escape it by heading West. You belong where you belong: only when you understand this brute fact can peace return. You are on your own; the US will not help you, and Europe alone cannot.

But Europeans should also study the subtext of the Alaska summit very carefully, because for them, too, this manifestation of a world order determined solely by the interests of great powers contains many sobering messages. If the meeting was attended by a whiff of the 1945 Yalta Conference, where World War II’s victors divided the geopolitical spoils, that is because it was another milestone marking the decline of multilateralism and supranationalism.

The idea of “the West” no longer means much, if anything, to America under Trump. All that counts is Trump’s worldview and his interpretation of American interests, as muddled as his interpretations are.

Europeans must decide for themselves where they stand. Although the US will not change its formal relations with Europe for the time being, Trump will continue to listen to Europeans and smirk approvingly at their flattery, then ignore them, as he did with the Alaska meeting.

Europeans must therefore understand that they are alone in this new world order. The US will no longer take their interests into account, whether in matters of security or trade.

Europe must become a global power in its own right, quickly and energetically confronting the entire spectrum of challenges that this entails, including space, intelligence services, and the entire digital sector. This “turning point” in Europe’s long history requires much greater and more far-reaching efforts than just European rearmament with conventional hardware and personnel, as important as that may be. That is the message from Alaska for Europeans.

Why is Trump’s America so obviously acting against its own interests? Except for the lifting of economic sanctions, Putin obviously got everything he wanted from the summit, above all escape from diplomatic isolation, US recognition of Russia as an equal world power, and acceptance of Ukraine’s fate as an integral part of Russkiy Mir (the “Russian world”). Why is Trump strengthening Russia without any quid pro quo?

Such questions, as important as they may be for Europeans, will be answered only on the terrain of US domestic politics. Europe must now take care of itself.

Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005, was a leader of the German Green Party for almost 20 years.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025.

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