Even at the stage of preparing the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin propaganda machine promptly began promoting the narrative of how “two grown men will decide” Ukraine’s fate. As reported by the Center for Strategic Communications, Moscow thus sought to disorient and demoralize Ukrainians, push civil society toward destructive actions. After the meeting itself, which took place on August 15, Russian propaganda continued to spin the same idea, converting it into narratives about “Russia’s victory and success” in the Alaska negotiations and that this meeting and its results became a “nightmare for Ukraine and Europeans.”
Kremlin fantasies about “successful success”
The quick reaction of the Russian propaganda machine to the “results” of the Putin-Trump meeting in Alaska indicates that this complex of reactions was prepared in advance. Practically the entire propaganda apparatus acted in coordination, with agreed-upon messages, systematically and purposefully – from Russian top officials to telegram garbage dumps. Accordingly, one can state that under conditional plan “A,” any result of the meeting the Kremlin was ready to present in the information space as victory and success. Plan “B” – in the absence of results needed by the Kremlin, the very fact of the meeting was to be highlighted as an unprecedented breakthrough, a “victory” of the Russian position and diplomacy.
Analyzing Russian messages after the presidents’ meeting, one can say that Moscow began “selling” both plans, which reinforce each other, artificially scaling the “achievements” of the bunker dictator at the meeting with Trump.
Thus, the “backup” president of the RF, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Medvedev in his telegram channel literally several hours after the first reports about the “results” of the Alaska meeting joined in spreading the narrative about the “successful successes” of the negotiations:
“…Important: the meeting proved that negotiations are possible without preconditions and simultaneously with the continuation of the SMO. Main point: both sides directly placed responsibility for achieving future results in negotiations on ceasing military actions on Kyiv and Europe.”
It should be noted that Medvedev, like other propagandists before, in his messages once again transferred responsibility for ending the war in Ukraine to Ukraine itself and its European partners. Thus, Russian propaganda throughout the full-scale invasion, by narratively removing responsibility for ending the war from itself, actually removed from the RF responsibility for starting the aggression as well. Allegedly, we didn’t start it – we don’t have to think about how to finish it. This is one of the cornerstone Kremlin propaganda narratives, where Russia is the victim, which by invading a neighbouring country was forced to… defend itself.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, as a representative of the so-called diplomatic corps of the RF, emphasized in her messages attention precisely on Putin’s “diplomatic” victory: “Western media are in a state that can be called madness transitioning to complete madness: for three years they talked about Russia’s isolation, and today they saw the red carpet with which they met the Russian President in the USA.”
Of course, nobody canceled the fact of the red carpet – this is recorded in hundreds of photos. However, Russia and Putin personally continue to be in diplomatic isolation, and the Alaska meeting is so far a one-time action. Because the path to Russia’s full return to the field of international diplomacy is still reliably closed, particularly by the ICC arrest warrant for Putin.
Historical tales as a sign of helplessness
To artificially scale the Kremlin’s “diplomatic” success, State Duma Chairman of the RF Volodin resorted to manipulative historical comparisons, stating that Putin realized Roosevelt’s dream: “Roosevelt’s idea of meeting with the head of the Soviet state in Alaska was realized 82 years later by Putin and Trump. Such are the historical parallels. On May 5, 1943, Roosevelt appealed to Stalin with a request to hold a meeting in Alaska…without Britain’s participation.”
Needless to say, how much Russian propaganda loves primitive manipulations of historical facts. One of the most recent vivid examples is the manipulation by the head of the Russian delegation at the Istanbul negotiations, Medinsky. He stated that Russia could fight forever, referring to Russia’s war against Sweden in the 18th century, which lasted 21 years. However, how exactly events from 300 years ago prove the military capabilities of modern RF, Medinsky could not explain. Volodin ignored facts uncomfortable for Russians about the real history of the possible Stalin-Roosevelt meeting in Alaska. Indeed, Roosevelt repeatedly invited Stalin to negotiations. In January 1943, in a letter to Stalin, he proposed to meet somewhere in Sudan or Algeria. Stalin refused, saying he was preparing for main operations in World War II on his own territory. The second time, in March 1943, Roosevelt proposed that Stalin meet somewhere in the Bering Strait – on USSR territory or in Alaska. Kamchatka was also considered – but without Churchill. Stalin again refused, because, allegedly, this might offend Churchill…
How Skabeeva dreamed of a new “world order”
Top propagandists from the Kremlin pool could not fail to join the manipulations about “Alaska successes.” Thus, propagandist Skabeeva tried to “spin” the Kremlin’s victory from Donald Trump’s post.
On Truth Social he wrote: “Everyone has concluded that the best way to end the terrible war between Russia and Ukraine is a direct peace agreement that ends the war, not just a ceasefire agreement that often doesn’t stand the test of time.”
Skabeeva reacted to Trump’s words with the following message: “That is, the U.S. president’s position after negotiations with Putin has changed, now they will discuss not a truce, but ending the war. And a new world order. As Moscow wanted.”
Moscow might indeed want to change the world order. This is one of the active Russian narratives: allegedly, the RF in confrontation with the “collective West” seeks to change the unipolar world, where the USA is the “hegemon,” to a multipolar one – for the “good and happiness” of all peoples on Earth. But all this demagoguery is intended only to justify the war against Ukraine and the confrontation with Western states provoked by the Kremlin. And most importantly – in his post, which Skabeeva quotes, Trump doesn’t say a word about changing the world order.
The smaller the victim – the louder the dogs bark
As with conducting any other large-scale information campaigns, Russian propaganda unleashed an entire pack of so-called experts. This “second echelon” of propagandists worked on scaling Russia’s “successful success,” and harassment of Ukraine and its European partners, whom Putin and Trump allegedly left no choice.
“The meeting in Alaska allowed Washington to significantly rethink the terms of Ukrainian settlement – the USA for the first time accepted Russia’s proposal. Trump now, most likely, has a deeper understanding of the Russian position. This means that both Ukraine and Europe will have to come to terms with it,” – Scott Ritter stated to RIA Novosti, whom Russian propagandists present as a military analyst.
But Scott Ritter is a top “American” pro-Russian propagandist, who is known for his anti-Ukrainian position, as well as for the fact that in 2011 he was convicted for contacts with a minor and on other charges.”Volodymyr Zelensky’s worst nightmare has become reality.
The Alaska summit demonstrated that Russia and the USA are capable of reaching agreements with each other on key issues of ensuring strategic security without the participation of Kyiv, Brussels, and London,” – Pavel Feldman commented to RT, Deputy Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasting of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia.
Besides the fact that Feldman is practically a staff expert of such Russian propaganda resources as “Sputnik,” “Russia Today,” “Svobodnaya pressa,” “IZVESTIA,” “Lenta.Ru,” he, like Scott Ritter, promotes the narrative that Trump and Putin “bent” Ukraine and Europe, decided Ukraine’s fate themselves, and that now the Ukrainian side and Europeans can only accept the terms and sign the papers they are told to sign, where they are told to sign them.
This is a narrative created for the Russian “deep people,” who are immersed in an information vacuum. Because in reality, President Trump, both before and after the meeting with Putin, remains in constant contact with Kyiv and its European partners. Yes, before the meeting Trump consulted with President Zelensky, conducting a telephone conversation with him, as well as with leaders of leading European countries. Immediately after the completion of negotiations in Anchorage, Trump again called the President of Ukraine, and subsequently leaders of European countries joined this call. On August 18, Zelensky flies to Washington, where will arrive German Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
So the desire to cross out Europe and Ukraine from the decision-making process is only an element of the Russian narrative about a dead end for Ukraine. Trump and his team are conducting active dialogue with the Ukrainian side and European countries.
“Hard nuts” of friendship
In attempts to strengthen arguments for demonstrating positive results of the Alaska meeting, Russian propaganda promotes a sub-narrative about “warm relations” between Putin and Trump, about a “meeting of two old friends.” Allegedly, what was discussed and decided between “friends” is stronger than hard nuts, so Zelensky and other European leaders have no chance to influence anything.
“The results of the Putin and Trump meeting in Alaska are ‘incredibly positive’… I think their meeting was very important… At the meeting of the two presidents, attention was drawn to the ‘body language’ – the leaders behaved when meeting like two old friends,” – Hungarian political expert Georg Spettle stated to RIA Novosti.
“For Europe, it became a horror that Trump personally met Putin with a red carpet. And there was a very warm handshake. It looked like a meeting of old friends or, at minimum, like-minded people who understand each other,” – Anton Orlov, Director of the Institute for Research of Contemporary Politics Problems, stated to RT.
However, the facts about the “warm meeting” of allegedly “two friends” tell a different story. Whatever they say in Moscow, the Alaska meeting is only one stage of a long diplomatic struggle, and not its finale at all. Of course, the Kremlin would prefer to quickly resolve the “Ukrainian question” without Ukraine, but nothing of the sort happened and will not happen. Because the world in which Ukraine is a subject-less territory, whose fate is decided by leaders of “superpowers,” exists only in Putin’s consciousness. And only there – in the imagination of the Russian dictator – is Russia a “superpower” that can arbitrarily dictate its will to other countries.
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