When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin sit down at the remote Elmendorf-Richardson airbase in Alaska , they will do so as key players in an international order transformed from the eve of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine .

It is testimony to the shift in global geopolitics that the two presidents will be staging their initial talks in search of a peace in Ukraine in the absence of Volodymyr Zelensky – the head of the nation whose fate may be thrashed out in the chill air of Anchorage as a new era of superpower dominance dawns.

In diplomatic circles, the view is increasingly being taken that a schismatic world is reverting to a time when it resembles a cake being carved up by the superpowers with the leaders of America, China and Russia sat at the table with their knives and forks p

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