Trump and Putin in Alaska. The noose tightens around Ukraine's neck

Italian version

We will write more extensively in the coming days about developments in world relations. Not everything is already clear and definite about the outcome of the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska. But a first basic assessment is possible – the US-Russia summit in Anchorage has followed the script of the most classic deal between imperialist powers over the skin and rights of other countries and peoples. 'Those who are not at the table are on the menu', an old saying of imperialist diplomacy goes. So it was. Ukraine was not present in Alaska because the subject matter of the meeting was and is its redivision. As for European imperialist powers, they were not present because of Putin and Trump's joint desire to separately cook up their own deal to submit to them. As a matter of fact, the new American administration's direction is to redraw the world balance of forces on the basis of its own direct relationship with the other two great powers, Russia and China, cutting out the allied imperialist countries.

This is a fact. The same American administration that pays greatest honour to the criminal Netanyahu has reserved the same welcome for the criminal Putin. The same American administration that justifies the design of Greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinians endorses Putin's restoration of his imperial space in Ukraine. The old and new imperialist powers look at each other in the mirror of their common cynicism.

The entire ceremonial meeting in Alaska was a red carpet for Putin. But even more so were the fundamental terms of the agreement announced, as far as we know from what has been disclosed.

First of all, US imperialism 'concedes' to Russian imperialism to continue bombing Ukraine and breaking through to the war front. The famous calls for a cease-fire, the repeated "ultimatums", first of fifty days, then even of eight, on pain of 'unprecedented' direct or indirect sanctions against Russia, turned out to be what they were – a propaganda bluff, a hypocritical and ridiculous act that only served to buy time and give time, in order to prepare an opposite solution.

Not all the contradictions have vanished, of course. Trump needs Putin to allow him to save face, even in the eyes of the American voters. It's not certain that Putin will grant Trump all the required and expected room for manoeuvre. But the meeting in Alaska shifts the discussion framework. The old ceasefire 'condition' is removed. All the talk about 'skipping a cease-fire deal and going straight for a peace deal' only means to embellish the real continuity of the war with hypocritical words. And the continuity of the invasion war is (also) Russia's most powerful negotiating weapon against Ukraine.

Secondly, US imperialism endorses the Russian claim not just to the already militarily conquered zones and the territories annexed after the February 2022 invasion, but also to the unconquered part of the Donbas, including the city of Kramatorsk – the heart of what remains of Ukraine's great industrial production and its mineral reserves.

In other words, the invaded Ukraine should not only give up the territories occupied by the invading imperialism but also concede what the latter has still not managed to wrest from it after three years of war, despite the enormous military superiority of its forces.

A humiliating solution. A solution, moreover, that would further shift the balance of power to the advantage of Russia, which could one day resume its march towards Kyiv from a much more advanced strategic position. Today the front line defending Kramatorsk is the heart of the Ukrainian defence. Abandoning that line is more than granting Putin another 100 kilometres of land. It would mean to place a mortgage on the Ukrainian state.

No need to add that any right of self-determination for the Donbass would be evidently ruled out by its complete annexation to Russia and an international agreement enshrining it.

As for the hypotheses of compensation offered to Ukraine in the form of 'guarantees' for the future, they are worth no more than a piece of paper. And it would be by no means certain. Putin would (maybe) sign a pledge not to resume the war. Just as he solemnly pledged not to invade Ukraine until three days before the 2022 invasion. Just as he had pledged in 1996 to end the war in Chechnya, only to resume it in 1999, with the complete destruction of Grozny.

A regime founded all the more today on war economics and its neo-imperial aims certainly intends to cash in on the benefits of an agreement with Trump, and the recognition deriving from it, but it will not abandon its ambitions. And Putin's victory in terms of image and politics at home, after the Alaska meeting, strengthens these ambitions. As for the 'guarantees' of protection for Ukraine offered by Trump, they have the same credibility as his character and his past promises. A defence of Ukraine entrusted to US imperialism is worth the defence of a henhouse entrusted to a fox, or rather to the closest accomplice of the fox.

The truth is that Trump wants to get out of Ukraine, both to reduce taxes US capitalists, and to concentrate more efforts and energy on the Pacific in the strategic confrontation with Chinese imperialism. Giving way to Putin in Ukraine means this. If it also means getting... the Nobel Peace Prize, so much the better for the man's insatiable vanity.

As for us, in any case, we will not call an annexation 'peace', whatever the Zelensky government's position will be. We won't follow the glorification of the 'dirty peace' as the Italian Limes magazine or the journalist Marco Travaglio are doing.

However, the meeting in Alaska went far beyond Ukraine. It concerns the global balance of nuclear armaments, the Arctic's great resources, power relations in the Middle East. Trump grants Russian imperialism the role of major negotiator on a global scale – the green light in Ukraine is just one mark of this wider opening. Putin, in return, assures US imperialism of its 'responsible' role in the Middle East, securing Iranian nuclear disarmament and Russian non-belligerence on the Zionist genocide in Palestine.

As for European imperialisms – pushed to the margins of the world partition – they hope one day to be able to get back into the game, thanks to their own rearmament plans. In the meantime, they reserve a seat in advance at the table of the Ukraine reconstruction business. They continue, beyond all the chatter, to support militarily the Zionist state, recognising at most a 'Palestinian state' while collaborating in the extermination of the Palestinians.

Neither the Palestinian people nor the Ukrainian people have anything to expect from the new and old imperialist powers and their cynical bargaining. Only an international socialist revolution, only a strong alliance between the working class and the oppressed peoples, can rid the world of the robbers who rule it.