No deals were made in Anchorage – Putin
No deals were reached at the Anchorage summit in Alaska last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed in an interview with Rossiya-1 on Sunday.
The summit, where Putin met with his American counterpart Donald Trump, marked the first top-level direct contact between Moscow and Washington in the years since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, and was hailed as a breakthrough. However, on Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the meeting produced only “a proposal” and no agreement.
“There really were no agreements in Anchorage,” Putin confirmed.
However, the compromises which Russia discussed and eventually accepted at the meeting were proposed by the American side, he said. The ‘Spirit of Anchorage’ was not “embodied in any formal documents” but both sides discussed certain possibilities for settling the Ukraine conflict.
We were asked to accept the compromises formulated by the American negotiators. We agreed.
Putin stressed that he has not received any other offer from the US administration since.
While both Moscow and Washington have stayed tight-lipped on the exact points discussed in Alaska, Trump later suggested that Kiev could need to give up territory in order to clinch a lasting peace settlement. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky – and his European backers – has categorically rejected any territorial concessions.
Putin has repeatedly stressed that for a lasting peace deal, Kiev must withdraw Ukrainian forces from the portion of Donbass it still controls. As long as Ukraine refuses to compromise, Russia will push towards its goals via military means, Moscow has said.
