By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) -In a few short hours in Alaska, Vladimir Putin managed to convince Donald Trump that a Ukraine ceasefire was not the way to go, stave off U.S. sanctions, and spectacularly shatter years of Western attempts to isolate the Russian president.

Outside Russia, Putin was widely hailed as the victor of the Alaska summit while at home, Russian state media cast the U.S. president as a prudent statesman, even as critics in the West accused him of being out of his depth.

Russian state media made much of the fact that Putin was afforded a military fly-over, that Trump waited for him on the red carpet, and then let the Russian president ride with him in the back of the “Big Beast”, the U.S. presidential limousine.

“Western media are in a state that could be descri

See Full Page