by MK
The world held its breath today as two countries that once faced each other down across the Iron Curtain met in a place that once belonged to one of them. Alaska, sold by the Russian Empire to the United States in 1867, became the unlikely stage for a summit between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and former President Donald J. Trump, a meeting freighted with the future of Ukraine and the shape of the world order to come.
It started with a jab: Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov in a T-shirt shouting “USSR,” a needle aimed straight at Washington’s ribs. Mr. Trump answered in kind — not in words, but in a flurry of cryptic X posts that sent allies and adversaries scrambling to guess his next move.
Mr. Trump says he seeks a cease-fire to end Europe’s largest war since 1945. Moscow counters that the talks will cover “the full spectrum” of relations, hinting at ambitions far beyond the trenches of Ukraine. Kyiv, meanwhile, accused Russia of “continuing to kill, even on the day of the summit,” a charge the Kremlin dismissed as “provocation.”
Anchorage, caught between its American present and Russian past, now hosts a meeting that could redraw the map — or remind the world just how easily it can be torn apart.
