Last chance saloon in Alaska: Russian hopes remain alive

“We’re tired. We believe, then it’s gone. Can we trust the Americans again, or do we just go back to fighting? We’ve no real choice; we just hope the fighting stops.”

The words of a 23-year-old woman from the small Urals town of Kasli — jaded, frustrated, yet with a flicker of belief that Friday’s meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump might result in something more than fine words and more fighting.

I returned to Russia for the second time in a month, again for meetings, forums, interviews, and work. I arrived just before news broke of the Alaska meeting between the leaders of Russia and the United States. Personally, I feel many times bitten and dreadfully shy of optimism — so why am I hopeful that this time peace in Ukraine might stick?

 Here we go again

 In February this year, the day before Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky was goaded into action in the White House, I gave an interview to the brilliant Philip O’Connor from Reuters about the peace potential of the second Trump administration. I said that while I hoped and believed Donald Trump was genuine in wanting to stop the senseless war in Russia and Ukraine, I didn’t trust European leaders, who stood to lose most if peace broke out.

Fast forward 48 hours, and the “Coalition of the Willing” was called by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to keep Russians and Ukrainians dying. I am old enough to remember the original Coalition of the Willing from 2003 and the illegal invasion of Iraq; this latest incarnation had the same uneasy feel.

In the early hours of 24 February 2022, mere hours before Russia began its military operation in Ukraine, I finished an interview with top Irish blogger Tony Groves about how there could not possibly be an escalation of the conflict that began well before 2014. We discussed “off ramps” and laughed at the ridiculousness of any war. Wrapping at 1:30 a.m. Moscow time, I went to bed — and awoke just after 6 a.m. to the beginning of another hot mess. Neither Philip nor Tony has released our interviews; we three were on the same page both times. We were fooled by our own peaceful hopes.

 Russians love their children too

“He’s not the same since. He is normal today, depressed tomorrow. His mother worries without end. He doesn’t watch ice hockey now,” Rustam said of his 21-year-old son Alik, who did his military service straight out of school, then signed a professional contract with the Russian Army last January.

Theirs is a military family — Rustam and his father both served, and his great-grandfather fought for the Red Army in the defence of Moscow. Rustam met me in a coffee shop in an Ekaterinburg shopping centre. He worries for Alik and wants him to apply to university — something Alik can’t even comprehend after spending six months of his contract clearing mines and booby traps in Kursk.

“I got the message from Dima when he left the base in Lipetsk and cried. I cannot explain. I told everyone this was not good,” Svetlana told me. Her son, whom she adopted with her husband from an orphanage in 2009, signed a contract in September 2023 “to make enough money to buy a place” of his own. A graduate of the prestigious Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, Dima had done his military training in 2019 before going to university. He was offered a well-paid position by Rosatom (Russia’s nuclear agency) before he left. Dima was killed when Ukrainian forces bombed the Russian city of Belgorod.

“I fought in Afghanistan, I have to tell you. Then, at least, we had ideals and we wanted to bring civilisation and development — if I can say that. Now, my grandson tried to forge a passport to sign up to go make money. What is wrong when kids don’t know the difference? My parents knew war, I knew war, I don’t want my grandchildren to know it. Enough,” Igor, a security guard in the Chelyabinsk region, told me. His grandson, 16, was stopped by Igor’s daughter, and it’s easy to understand why an impressionable teen, raised on first-person shooter video games, would think it great to get a bonus of $20,000 just to sign a contract and go to war.

 Nobody likes us and we don’t care

On Monday, I met in Moscow with a former football club executive I worked with over a decade ago. He moved from being a big hitter with Spartak Moscow — one of Russia’s top sides — to a fast-food chain as Commercial Director. He was earning well, ‘lovin’ it’, and then in April 2022 believed he had to serve his nation. By November that year, he saw his first action and eventually moved into an administrative role with the Ministry of Defence following a serious spinal injury.

“Remember how we used to joke about Spartak being Russia’s Millwall — that the world hates us and we love it? That’s Russia now,” he said, reminding me of how I’d once described Russia as the world’s whipping boy over doping and sports scandals. “No matter what we do, how this Alaska thing turns out, we need to keep our path.”

When I asked if this was just the “party line” given his job, he laughed. “Alan, you’ve known me a lifetime. Do you think I begin to care about this? I love Europe, I am European, but you think I’m deaf to what they call us, my kids? Orcs, Mongols, animals. I can’t forget — because they won’t let us.”

 And the fighting continued

Just a few days after the invasion, in the confused media reporting, Ukraine’s president called for peace. I reposted it on Twitter (now X) and hoped the madness would stop. A week later, then-Israeli PM Naftali Bennett visited Moscow and got assurance from Vladimir Putin that his counterpart in Kyiv would not be harmed. Immediately, Zelensky came out with renewed bravado — and the fighting continued.

A month on, negotiations in Istanbul were being reported as “highly positive”. UK PM Boris Johnson then ventured to Kyiv and told Ukraine’s president to fight on. One of the Ukrainian negotiators was murdered by his own people — and the fighting continued.

This was all amid a feeding frenzy of “first to press” posts by irresponsible media who decided critical thinking was for the weak. Unchecked lies, hate, and stupidity abounded — and not just from one side. Raw videos would appear, disappear, and then a highly edited version would surface with a narrative attached — like the maternity hospital incident in Mariupol.

The original version had victims arguing with journalists and Ukrainian military personnel who had based themselves in the institution, only for the “general consumption” final cut to remove their voices. When I remarked on this, I was lambasted and vilified, accused of repeating “Kremlin propaganda”. A short time later, when the young woman Marianna Vyshegirskaya — used as the “face” of the tragedy — came out and contradicted what Western media had claimed, she too was accused of repeating “Kremlin propaganda”. And the fighting continued.

 Kicking the can or actual peace?

Russian media is cautiously optimistic — even genuinely hopeful — of a peace deal in Alaska. There is a February 2025 vibe: that Donald Trump wants to end the mess in Ukraine and focus on America. One local journalist from Kommersant is sceptical.

“Iran thought the same before American bombers dropped their loads. If it is Trump who actually commanded his country with Vance and a few other humans, I’d say there is peace already. But look at Lindsey Graham and the other ghoulish people — tell me they want peace. It will buy time to get more weapons to Ukraine, or freeze the conflict for the next administration.”

European leaders like Merz, Starmer, von der Leyen, and Macron have ignored burning domestic issues in a “look over there” move that is impressive. An analyst from Moscow’s Higher School of Economics has estimated that a peace deal right now will cost the European Union in excess of $300 billion by the end of 2026. Her calculation includes loans to Kyiv, weapons and equipment sent on credit, and loans made to European companies that will lose out on oil, gas, and mineral opportunities in territories under Moscow’s control. As in February this year, those with the most to lose need the killing to go on.

 Commonality of humanity

Russians and Ukrainians are united in one thing: peace. A recent Gallup poll found 69% of Ukrainians favour a negotiated end to the war. From Russian media sources, it’s the same here.

It is confusing, however, as Western media continues the Yoni-and-Linga narrative that has their audiences reacting like subjects of an experiment. Either they are deliberately scaring people into believing Russia is about to collapse, or into thinking it is about to invade.

Russia is bankrupt — yet financing election manipulation everywhere. Russia’s military are taking microchips from washing machines — yet about to roll into the Baltic nations. Russia is losing thousands of soldiers a day — yet paid talking heads in Ireland want to buy fighter jets to combat the “upcoming Russian invasion”. Which is it? Ivan Pavlov would be proud of the bell-ringing heard across the West since February 2022.

Speaking with dozens of locals in Russia on my trips this month, there is one uniting theme: the sooner this ends, the better for us all. One man, a resident of the Voronezh region, said he could visit his relatives’ graves in Ukraine for the first time since 2019. His annual pilgrimage was interrupted by COVID-19 and now by conflict between his country and the birthplace of his mother. He has actively stayed in contact with relatives — people who see past the hateful words and propaganda.

People who want to see their cousin, now in his late seventies, because, as he told me today by phone: “When all these people who profit from war go to their mansion to count their money, I can go sit at the grave of my grandparents, drink tea with my cousins, and return home without worrying a drone is coming to bomb my house.”

Hope remains that Putin and Trump will sit down, talk, and bring peace.

Donald Trumpgeopoliticstrade tariffVladimir PutinVolodymyr Zelensky