Letters from an American - August 16, 2025

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

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August 16th, 2025. Yesterday, military personnel from the United States of America literally rolled out a red carpet for a dictator who invaded a sovereign country and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including the stealing of children. Apparently, coached by his team, Trump stood to let Russia's President Vladimir Putin walked toward him after Putin arrived

at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, putting Trump in a dominant position. But he clapped as Putin walked toward him. The two men greeted each other warmly. This summit between the President of the United States and the President of Russia came together fast in the midst of the outcry in the US over Trump's inclusion in the Epstein files,

and the administration's refusal to release those files. US envoy Steve Whitkoff had been visiting Moscow for months to talk about a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine when he heard through a back channel that Putin might be willing to talk to Trump in person to offer a deal. On August 6, after a meeting in Moscow, Whitkoff announced that Russia was ready to retreat

from some of the land it occupies in Ukraine. This apparent concession came just two days before the August 8th deadline Trump had set for severe sanctions against Russia unless it agreed to a ceasefire. Quickly, though, it became clear that Whitkoff's description of Putin's offer was wrong, either because Putin had misled him or because he had misunderstood. Whitkoff does not speak Russian, and according to former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFal, does not use a note-taker from the U.S. embassy. Nonetheless, on the U. On Friday, August 8th, Trump announced on social media

that he would meet personally with Putin in Alaska without Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That the President of the United States offered a meeting to Putin on U.S. soil, ground that once belonged to Russia and that Russian nationalists fantasize about taking back, was itself a win for Putin. As Jonathan Lemire noted today in the Atlantic,

In the week before the meeting, leaders in Ukraine and Europe worried that Trump would agree to Putin's demand that Ukraine hand over Crimea and most of its four eastern oblasts, a demand that Russian operatives made initially in 2016 when they offered to help Trump win the White House, the so-called Maryupol plan, and then pressure Ukraine to accept the deal. In the end, that did not happen.

The summit appears to have produced nothing but a favorable photo op Putin. That is no small thing for Russia, which is weak and struggling, managed to break the political isolation it's lived in since invading Ukraine again in 2022. Further, the choreography of the summit suggested that Russia is equal to the United States. But those important optics were less than Russia wanted. It appeared that Russia was trying to set the scene for a major powers summit of the past, one in which the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, also known as a Soviet Union, were the dominant players with the USSR

dominating the U.S. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov showed up to Russia in a sweatshirt with the Russian initials for USSR, a sign that Russia intends to absorb Ukraine as well as other former Soviet republics and recreate itself as a dominant world power. As Lamir notes, Putin indicated he was interested in broadening the conversation to reach beyond Ukraine into economic relations between the two countries, including a discussion of the Arctic, and a nuclear arms agreement. The U.S. seemed to be following suit. It sent a high-ranking delegation that included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary,

Scott Besant, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, Special Envoy Whitkoff, Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, and Defense Secretary Pete Heggzeth. Exactly what the White House expected from the summit was unclear. Trump warned that if Putin didn't agree to a ceasefire, there would be very severe consequences. But the White House also had seemed to be walking back any expectations of a deal at the summit, downgrading the meeting to a listening exercise. After Trump and Putin met on the tarmac,

Trump ushered the Russian president to the presidential limousine, known as the Beast, giving them time to speak privately, despite the apparent efforts of the U.S. delegation to keep that from happening. When the summit began, Rubio and Whitkoff joined Trump, to make up the U.S. delegation, while Putin, his longtime foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushikov and Lavrov made up the Russian delegation. The principles emerged after a three-hour meeting

with little to say. At the news conference after their meeting, Putin took the podium first, an odd development since he was on U.S. soil, and spoke for about eight minutes. Then Trump spoke for three minutes, telling reporters the parties had not agreed to a ceasefire, but that he and Putin had made great progress in their talks.

Both men appeared subdued. They declined to take reporters' questions. A Fox News Channel reporter said, the way it felt in the room was not good. It did not seem like things went well. It seemed like Putin came in and steamrolled, got right into what he wanted to say, and got his photo next to the president, then left. While Putin got his photo op, he did not get the larger superpower dialogue he evidently wanted.

Neither did he get the open support of the United States to end the war on his terms, something he needs as his war against Ukraine drags on. The two and a half hour working lunch that was scheduled did not take place. Both men left Alaska within an hour. Speaking with European leaders in a phone call from Air Force One on his way home

from the summit, Trump said that Putin rejected the idea of a ceasefire and insisted that Ukraine's seed territory to Russia. He also suggested that a coalition of the willing, including the U.S., would be required to provide security guarantees to Ukraine. But within hours, Trump had dropped his demand for a ceasefire and instead echoed Putin's position that negotiations for a peace agreement should begin without one. In an interview with Fox News Channel personality, Sean Hannity, after the meeting, Trump said he would not impose further sanctions on Russia, because the meeting with Putin had gone very well. Because of what happened today, I think I don't have to think about that now, Trump told Hannity. I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks

or something, but we don't have to think about that right now. Trump also suggests that, suggested he was backing away from trying to end the war and instead dumping the burden on Ukraine's president. He told Hannity that it's really up to President Zelensky to get it done. Today, Kiara Eisner of NPR reported that officials from the Trump administration left eight pages of information produced by the U.S. State Department in a public printer at the business center of an Alaskan hotel. The pages revealed potentially sensitive information about the August 15th meetings, including the names and phone numbers of three U.S. staff members and 13 U.S. and Russian state leaders. The pages also contained the information that Trump intended to give Putin an American Bald Eagle desk statue and the menu for the canceled lunch, which specified that the luncheon was,

in honor of his excellency, Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. Thank you. Thank you.