The obstacle to peace? Russia wants what it can't have

VLADIMIR PUTIN is on a roll the past few weeks. First President Trump invited him to Anchorage. Then he got a three-way hug with China's President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a summit in China. And an invitation to a grand military parade in Beijing.

- ALEXANDRA VACROUX GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, left, meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China's President Xi Jinping on Sept. 1, after his Alaska summit with President Trump.

Since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Putin had been shunted to the fringes of summit group photos. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he had been treated as a pariah by the United States and Europe. Indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, he could travel only to countries that wouldn't arrest him. In short, Moscow was not being treated with the respect it believed it deserved.

Trump thought that by literally rolling out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska and clapping as the Russian loped down the red carpet - he could reset the bilateral relationship. And it did. But not the way Trump intended.

The Alaska summit convinced the Russians that the current administration is willing to throw the sources of American global power out the window.

Trade partners, geopolitical allies and alliances - everything is on the table for Trump. The U.S. president believes this shows his power; the Russians see this as a low-cost opportunity to degrade American influence. Putin was trained by the KGB to recognize weakness and exploit it.