Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded to three high-level Russian officials’ claims that the US had reneged on the “Spirit of Anchorage”, which an RT contributor described as Trump coercing Zelensky into withdrawing from Donbass in exchange for Putin declaring a ceasefire, by denying that any deal existed. In his words, “There was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement. If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end of the war.” His Russian counterpart feels differently.
According to Sergey Lavrov, he himself, Rubio, Trump and others were there when Putin read back each of Steve Witkoff’s proposals one by one, after which Putin expressed agreement with them once Witkoff confirmed that he understood them. Evidently, the Russian delegation believed that an understanding was reached whereby Trump was obligated to do something, but he never did. Given RT’s reliability, it was likely what they reported, which Trump failed to comply with for the reasons explained here.
His decision to “escalate to de-escalate” through an intense three-phase “war of attrition” against Russia centered on strengthening Ukraine’s strike capabilities, imposing more sanctions, and stirring unrest inside of Russia has to be accounted for somehow by his side in a “face-saving” way. Admitting that an arrangement was indeed agreed to, which Russia subsequently described as the “Spirit of Anchorage”, but then reneged upon by Trump would discredit him and complicate future negotiations with others.
For that reason, Rubio is ignoring that something was indeed agreed to in favor of focusing on the factual truth that no “official” agreement was reached, which is dishonest. After all, if no understanding was agreed to, then Trump 2.0 or even he himself personally would have immediately fact-checked Russia once it started talking about the “Spirit of Anchorage”. Thus, something was quite clearly agreed to, but Trump ultimately didn’t fulfill his obligation and that’s why Russia is disappointed with him.
What this means going forward is that Russian officials from Putin on down are unlikely to take him at his word anymore, especially now that he’s “escalating to de-escalate” with Russia, though they’ll still likely participate in bilateral talks with the US as well as US-mediated ones with Ukraine. That’s because the conflict will inevitably end at the negotiating table, even if it’s more of a formality than actual negotiations where each side is sincerely trying to reach a compromise with the other.
Accordingly, Russia is expected to continue pressing forward in pursuit of its minimum goal of obtaining full control over Donbass before agreeing to a ceasefire, while the US’ goal is for Ukraine to inflict as much damage upon Russia as possible before then. Trump 2.0’s grand strategic goal of coercing Russia into selling controlling stakes in its state natural resource companies as “security guarantees” against future Ukrainian strikes probably won’t happen unless in the worst-case scenario of Russia’s defeat.
For these reasons, observers can expect a worsening of Russian-US ties in the future, but everything will likely remain manageable. The best-case scenario is that Russia decisively wraps up the special operation before then, but that would require Putin “escalating to de-escalate” in his own right, and it’s unclear whether this consummate pragmatist is willing to risk an escalation spiral afterwards. Whatever he ultimately does will nevertheless be due to his sincere belief that it’s in Russia’s best interests.
