June 27, 2026 01:03 CET
WASHINGTON — As Moscow increasingly invokes the “spirit of Anchorage” to claim a framework for ending the war in Ukraine already exists, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has flatly pushed back, opening a fierce diplomatic battle over what actually occurred during last year’s high-stakes summit.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Bahrain, Rubio directly contradicted a coordinated wave of assertions from senior Russian officials that the August 2025 summit in Alaska produced an informal understanding on Ukraine.
“There was no agreement in Alaska. There was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement in Alaska,” Rubio told RFE/RL on June 25.
He added bluntly: “If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end to the war.”
The semantic dispute cuts to the very core of Moscow’s current negotiating posture. For days, the Kremlin has sought to frame the face-to-face meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin as a diplomatic turning point.
Rubio’s sharp rebuttal is the most definitive US denial yet — and carries unique weight because the Secretary of State was personally in the room for the delegation.
‘Inelegant’ Definitions And Missing Documents
Rubio’s account confirms that substantive terms were indeed debated in Alaska, but he emphasized they never matured into a bilateral deal. When pressed on the nature of those talks, Rubio pointed to Moscow’s maximalist territorial appetites.
“Russia wants the entirety of Donetsk to be turned over to them, among some other things that they raised, but there was never an agreement,” Rubio told RFE/RL.
The Kremlin, however, has rapidly escalated its version of history. On June 26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov fired back at Rubio, offering a granular — and starkly different — reconstruction of the summit.
According to Lavrov, Putin meticulously reviewed a series of American proposals that Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, had brought to Moscow days prior to the summit. Lavrov claimed Putin checked them point-by-point with Witkoff in front of Trump and Rubio, and that Witkoff affirmed them.
“Therefore, when my colleague M. Rubio says that there were only proposals in Alaska but no agreement, it raises a question regarding what we actually mean by ‘agreement,'” Lavrov said in written media responses. “If one side — in this case, the US — put on the table its proposals for a settlement… and the other side expressed its consent to those proposals, then claiming there was no agreement seems rather inelegant.”
Diplomats and seasoned Russia watchers view Lavrov’s rhetorical gymnastics as a classic deception strategy.
Daniel Fried, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia who served under seven US administrations, noted that Moscow is attempting to manufacture diplomatic leverage out of thin air.
“The Kremlin is seeking to conjure diplomatic advantage at a time of Ukrainian military success by claiming a bargain was struck when none seems to have been,” Fried told RFE/RL, praising Rubio for “swatting it back.”
Fried also pointed out a glaring double standard in the Kremlin’s sudden reverence for unwritten pacts. “Funny how the Kremlin claims a deal without a document. But it ignores the document — a Russo-Ukraine Treaty concluded when Putin was President — that confirms the 1991 Russo-Ukraine borders. Putin himself signed the border treaty.”
Chasing Ghosts And Shifting Fortunes
The roots of the breakdown in Anchorage may trace back to freelance diplomacy that preceded the summit.
Glen Howard, a veteran Russia strategist and president of the Saratoga Foundation, suggested that earlier solo meetings in Moscow between Witkoff and Russian officials — conducted without note-takers or US-provided translators — gave Putin a false impression that Washington was prepared to strong-arm Kyiv into relinquishing the Donbas.
Howard said he believes those expectations collapsed in Alaska. “Trump had lunch ready, but they could not agree and he was not going to sell out Ukraine,” he told RFE/RL.
Howard presents that detail as evidence of how abruptly the summit broke down.
For him, Alaska was significant not because of what was agreed, but because of what was not.
Howard also argues the White House position appears to have evolved since then: away from territorial concessions and toward a freeze-in-place cease-fire.
If accurate, that would represent a major strategic shift. RFE/RL has reached out to Witkoff for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.
The current White House and Kyiv are now aligned on a strict freeze-in-place cease-fire, completely removing phased withdrawals from the table.
This diplomatic hardening coincides with notable shifts on the battlefield. Armed with new Western capabilities, including F-16s deploying advanced precision glide bombs, Ukraine has systematically targeted Russian defense infrastructure, oil refineries, and vital logistical corridors like the R280 highway, threatening to isolate occupied Crimea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently informed Western leaders that deep strikes are actively altering the military balance — a reality underscored by reports of defensive posturing from nervous neighbors like Belarus’s Alyaksandr Lukashenko.
With its military logistics facing severe strain, Moscow’s insistence on the non-existent “Anchorage framework” appears less like an invitation to talk and more like political theater for an internal audience.
Paul Goble, a former State Department special adviser and CIA analyst, warns that the narrative is designed to insulate the Kremlin from domestic anger over mounting casualties and drone strikes hitting Russian cities.
“I think Putin is putting in place a narrative in which he can say that Russians must mobilize because the West has betrayed Russia yet again, defeat Ukraine, and be ready to move against the West,” Goble told RFE/RL, noting that the Kremlin likely views the window ahead of the upcoming US midterms and Russian Duma elections as the critical time to act.
By rewriting the history of the Alaska summit, the Kremlin is positioning itself to shift the blame entirely onto Washington if diplomacy permanently collapses, analysts say.
In the information theater of this war, the battle over what happened in Anchorage is no longer about diplomatic bookkeeping — it is about laying the groundwork for what comes next.
https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-putin-rubio-lavrov-alaska-russia-ukraine/33789730.html
“Trump had lunch ready, but they could not agree and he was not going to sell out Ukraine,” he told RFE/RL.”
And if you believe that, you’ll believe fucking anything!
So, who should we believe? A “veteran Russia strategist” in an interview with RFE/RL or Scradje?…;)
You might remember Trump kicked out the Moskali early and didn’t even get to lunch. Also, that there was no signed documents from the meeting. Logically, that means there was no agreement to pressure Ukraine but don’t let the facts disturb your self-imposed narrative.
I blame Witkopf for misleading both sides and not including Ukraine in any of his considerations. Likely both putler and Trump took his word which is why we’re here today.
“Logically, that means there was no agreement”
There were 3 clauses in that statement:
1. Trump had lunch ready
2. they could not agree
3. he {trumpkov) was not going to sell out Ukraine,
I’d wager that the only part to which Sir Scradge was referring was the third part. And the claim that trumpkov was not going to sell out Ukraine was an *opinion* by Glen Howard. Being a “veteran Russia strategist” doesn’t give any weight to his opinion on what trumpkov might or might not do.
It’s my opinion that trumpkov would sell out Ukraine in a heartbeat if he thought he could enrich himself personally.
The fact that a rift exists implies that comrade Rubio previously enjoyed warm relations with the genocidal nazi filth that is Lavrov, which is extremely disturbing.
There is an article by Mark Galeotti in today’s Sunday Times entitled : “If Putin fears he is losing Crimea, there’s no telling what he’ll do”
It’s paywalled so one can only speculate on the contents.
It is believed, but never confirmed, that representatives from the Biden administration issued a warning to putler that if he used tactical nukes on Ukraine, there would be a devastating US response involving the complete destruction using conventional munitions, of the putinaZi occupiers.
No idea if it’s true or not, but now would be the time for a responsible US president to reissue that warning very forcefully.
Unfortunately the current incumbent is not responsible for anything in Ukraine’s favour; quite the reverse.
“an article by Mark Galeotti in today’s Sunday Times”
If Putin fears he is losing Crimea, there’s no telling what he’ll do
The peninsula, which is deeply significant to the Russian leader, has declared a state of emergency as Ukraine tightens its airborne siege
I was living in Moscow in March 2014 when Vladimir Putin held a rigged referendum as part of his annexation of Crimea. Russian forces had seized control of the peninsula a month earlier, and the ballot asked voters whether they wanted to rejoin Russia or be part of Ukraine, as it had been since 1954.
My flat was on one of the city’s ring roads, and on the night after the announcement that the vote had ratified reincorporation into Russia, I scarcely got a wink of sleep. Cheering Muscovites drove round and round their city, horns blaring, flags waving from car windows. This was not some Kremlin-organised performance; this was genuine and spontaneous public enthusiasm.
This is why the struggle over Crimea is so significant. In recent days, Ukraine’s drones and missiles have been hammering the roads, railways and bridges leading into the peninsula. On Friday, as Kyiv tightened its airborne siege, the regional governor Sergei Aksyonov declared a state of emergency.
Kyiv is using its increasingly effective forces — especially the so-called mid-range strike capabilities that sit between the expensive long-range drones hitting major cities and the cheap, short-range systems that scour the front line — to hit Russian bases and supply lines. In Crimea, that meant first attacking air defence radars and launchers, and then using the window of opportunity this opened to hit the routes connecting the peninsula to the rest of Russia, along with oil and gas storage facilities and power stations.
Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian defence minister, boasted earlier this month of “isolating Crimea with drones” and this certainly seems to be happening. Ferries have been attacked, roads closed and the railway bridge over the North Crimea Canal has been cratered. On Wednesday the capital, Sevastopol, was left without power when drones hit an electrical substation. All civilian sales of fuel have been suspended.
Even during the war, Crimea’s beaches and historic sites made it a popular tourist destination. Now bookings are evaporating, children’s summer camps are cancelled, and the queue of cars and trucks waiting to cross the Kerch bridge back to mainland Russia regularly stretches more than five miles. The peninsula’s economy is in crisis.
As with all such campaigns, civilians are inevitably suffering. There have been direct casualties from strikes, and local social media highlighted the plight of pensioners left without electricity in temperatures of 30C. The one pensioner whom Kyiv is really trying to affect, though, is the one in the Kremlin.
Crimea was part of Russia until 1954 when it was transferred to Kyiv’s control for administrative convenience, and is not like the other Ukrainian territories that Putin has claimed. It has strategic significance as the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (and many Russian officers retired to the peninsula with their families), as well as spiritual significance. The town of Chersonesos is regarded as the symbolic birthplace of Russian Orthodoxy. It also has very clear political significance to Putin as the only truly popular element of his annexation campaigns.
Some more ambitious voices in Kyiv are calling for an early attempt to retake the peninsula by force, but the general consensus is that this would be very difficult. It is heavily garrisoned and extensive defences have been built along the narrow isthmus connecting it to the mainland. A German officer told me last week that “for Ukraine to try to liberate Crimea would require it to take too many forces from other fronts, weakening them seriously. It might fail there, and in the process also fail to hold the Russians back elsewhere.”
In reality, Kyiv’s hope is that, by presenting Putin with the threat of losing this most prized of conquests, he will be forced to the negotiating table and accept Ukraine’s demand for a ceasefire before anything else. But the risk is that it drives the Russian leader to escalate instead.
Although formally committed to regaining control over all occupied territories, the unspoken assumption within the Ukrainian government is that it will have to accept Russia’s de facto control of Crimea as part of the price of peace. Putin would thus have to negotiate in good faith and on Kyiv’s terms if he wants to end the siege and lift the threat to the peninsula — or if it simply becomes unsustainable for Moscow to garrison, supply and maintain it.
President Zelensky seems confident that this is a viable strategy and has separately approved a plan by the SBU, the Ukrainian Security Service, to launch what has been described as a 40-day operation to pressure Russia to sue for peace. Likewise, the bullish Fedorov, promising that “in the near future, Crimea will become an island”, is reportedly of the view that Moscow will be forced to come to terms within a few months.
There is certainly a new confidence in Kyiv, just as many in Russia are growing pessimistic. Igor Girkin, a nationalist officer now in prison for his critical views of the Kremlin, who has often offered a perceptive analysis of the campaign, wrote that the situation was “grave now, but promises to become critical in just a few weeks if the enemy continues its ‘strategic air offensive’.”
But the outcome may be rather less predictable and controllable than Zelensky seems to think. Within Russia’s administrative and business elites are pragmatists who feel that, with or without control of the last portions of the Donbas region that Putin has claimed, Russia should freeze the conflict. They argue that the war has reached a point of diminishing returns, and it is best simply to hold on to what has already been conquered, declare victory and open negotiations intended to stop the Ukrainian strikes into the Russian heartland and lift at least some western sanctions.
There is also a maximalist camp, though. They agree that the conflict cannot be allowed to drag on but their answer is escalation: the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of reservists, the deployment of conscripts (who until now have largely not been sent to fight) and maybe more aggressive covert operations against the factories in Europe supplying Ukraine’s weapons. They accept that this would be massively unpopular at home, but argue that short-term disruption is a worthwhile price to pay for a quick seizure of the Donbas and the chance to impose their preferred peace terms on Kyiv.
This would be a high-risk strategy, as failure on the front could galvanise protest at home, the way defeats against Japan in 1905 and during the First World War did for the tsars. To the hawks, unwilling to believe that the Ukrainians could handle a full-scale offensive by hundreds of thousands of fresh troops, it is a good bet. Fortunately, Putin, who despite his macho public persona is generally quite risk averse, does not yet seem convinced.
However, when Putin is panicked, he tends to make decisions hastily and badly. Speaking to military cadets last week, he claimed that Kyiv was seeking to “destabilise society” and, by implication, his regime. If he fears that the loss of Crimea, or simply an inability to protect it, will not simply tarnish his legacy but possibly bring him down, he may opt to negotiate — but he could as easily be tempted to up the ante.
Fedorov warned that his drone campaign “could lead to some unexpected consequences for Russia”, but this applies to Ukraine, too.
Thank you for posting it Larry.
This administration was never competent in anything it’s done, and this goes especially with the way it handled the mafia-terrorist state.
My take on it. TACO and putler agreed that mafia land would take control of Donbas. TACO would pressure Zelensky, and everyone could walk away happy, except Zelensky gave the middle finger to both of these scumbags. We can all remember eyeliner man stating it was only a bit of territory, so we know it was TACO trying to throw Ukraine under the bus.
Of course, we knew it all along.
Why is everyone shy about revealing what was in these proposals. Obviously nothing was going to benefit Ukraine, only the US and mafia land. Now that Z basically showed TACO his cards, and TACO can see mafia land being destroyed, he wants to align himself with Ukraine. No doubt claiming he was solely responsible for a Ukrainian victory.
And we have only Macron’s word that the US has shifted from its pro-putlerstan position.
I have noticed Fox news dedicating more airtime to Ukrainian attacks on mafia land. This is a good sign if the MAGA viewers can see the destruction.
Fox (or faux news as it is more accurately known) used to employ extreme putinaZi conspiracy theorist Carlson. It still employs Laura Ingraham, a vile putlerist skank, so I don’t know if its editorial position has changed.
When Newsmax came along, it continued in the same vein, employing longstanding Trump friend Michael Savage. Savage is very similar to Carlson in his putlerism, but relatively intelligent.
When Newsmax announced that they were opening in Kyiv, I thought “be careful Ukraine.”
Why would they want to allow turds like that in Ukraine?
Anyway, launch was scheduled for spring 2026, but didn’t happen.
Newsmax does now have a Ukraine section on its website, but seems to offer fairly bland news, rather than OpEds.
Whether they will launch at all now is in question.
I hate to break the news to Russians (who am I kidding I love it.) Trump back winners and right now that not Russia. He personally doesn’t care a little bit who wins except how it benefits him personally and the sooner the better.
“The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it”
-Frank Herbert
Power is the only thing Trump understands or cares about. So whatever may or not have been agreed to in Alaska makes no difference. That was them this is now and now Zelensky is holding the cards.
However Zelensky needs to turn the current blockade of Crimea in battlefield success. that to is the only thing Trump understands.
But for now at least Trump is not giving Putin the political support Putin was counting on