Don't expect much ...
"The get-together, we’re told, will be a chance to judge whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has any real desire for peace. But we already know the answer to that: it’s no, unless by peace we’re talking about
total capitulation by Ukraine, with Kyiv giving up territory already seized by Russia, while surrendering any hope it has of building a free and democratic country with aspirations towards membership in the European Union and Nato alliance.
What Putin wants is Ukraine as a client state in the manner of Belarus, a
puppet republic headed by a willing minion to Russian dominance. In place of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Putin imagines the sort of pliant figure that was a feature of the old Soviet Union he so badly misses, a “union” of supplicants owned and operated from the Kremlin.
He’s shown no inclination to change his mind on that. Nor is there any indication his aims or level of determination have altered since he launched his ruinous war three years ago. To date, he’s readily accepted the deaths of an estimated quarter million Russian troops, murdered an ally who sought to interrupt him, overseen the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children and waved goodbye to hundreds of thousands of young Russians who fled the country to escape his grasp. Change his mind now? Good luck on that.
From Putin’s position,
there’s little reason to compromise now. He faces no serious internal opposition or public pressure. Russians as a people are so accustomed to centuries of all-powerful monarchs, dictators or one-party states controlling their lives — demanding unquestioning obedience while treating resistance with ruthless punishment — that it’s bred in their bone. They’re born to it, live with it and see little prospect of anything different. People who challenge Putin fall out of windows, die in exploding airplanes or expire in jails in some distant outback. He has valuable economic and commercial support from China, which has its own reasons for seeking a western world flummoxed by the uncertainty Putin’s war creates...
For Russia, the summit represents
another chance to play for time, stringing along the president while continuing to pummel Ukraine and its people. His chances of gain increase the longer Washington procrastinates and Europe is distracted by the economic and security threats the conflict engenders....
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/kelly-mcparland-alaska-summit-offers-no-hope-for-ukraine-compromise?itm_source=index
