WASHINGTON (Realist English). Former US national security adviser John Bolton said Russian President Vladimir Putin “clearly won” last week’s Alaska summit with President Donald Trump, arguing that Trump “did not lose” but failed to secure meaningful progress on Ukraine.
Speaking on CNN, Bolton said Trump “didn’t come away with anything, except more meetings,” while Putin succeeded in reestablishing high-level engagement with Washington — which Bolton described as the Kremlin’s key objective.
“Putin escaped sanctions, he’s not facing a ceasefire, and there are no concrete next steps for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” Bolton said. He criticised Trump’s approach as falling short of NATO’s goal of restoring Ukraine’s full sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Bolton added that with Russian forces still advancing on the battlefield, “even if it’s three yards in a cloud of dust, Putin is not going to give up anything if he can get away with it.” He described Putin’s first visit to US soil since 2015 as an attempt to present a “peace plan” to Trump — one Bolton sees as unlikely to succeed. “It’s far from over, but I’d say Putin achieved most of what he wanted. Trump achieved very little,” he concluded.
The Alaska summit was billed as Trump’s most ambitious effort to halt Russia’s war in Ukraine. But the two leaders provided few details and declined to take questions afterward. Putin said they had reached an “understanding” and warned Europe not to “torpedo the nascent progress.” Trump called the talks “great progress” but admitted that no breakthrough was reached: “There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” he said, adding that he would brief Zelenskyy and European leaders.
