Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s Alaska summit, scheduled for Friday , is intended by both participants to be a defining moment in their leaderships.

For Trump, the location is significant: a reminder of the deal forged by the US to buy Alaska from Moscow in 1867. It is proof that anything can be bought or sold, especially in the Trump era – and that includes swathes of Ukraine.

Equally for Putin, the encounter marks the, at least partial, achievement of two goals he has hankered for since ordering the invasion of his biggest neighbour’s territory, first in 2014 and then with full vengeance in 2022. One, the ambition of annexing Ukraine territorially as a satellite of Moscow. And two, a return to a bilateral, Cold War relationship between Russia and the US, reducing Volodymyr Zelensky

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