LIVE from Ukraine: Tim Mak on the Trump-Putin Summit Fiasco

"Where to start with this fiasco? The kind of large-scale reaction from here in Kiev is one of absolute disgust,” Tim Mak told Lincoln Square Executive Editor Susan J. Demas in a Saturday morning interview from Ukraine.

On Friday, Vladimir Putin was on American soil, invited by President Trump for a summit on the Ukraine war — that notably didn’t include Volodymyr Zelenskyy or any representative from Ukraine. Despite Trump’s promise beforehand, there was no deal on a ceasefire. Trump said he’d hold off on stronger sanctions for Russia and said he and Putin “largely agreed on land swaps.”

Although Trump rated the summit at “a 10,” the reviews weren’t exactly glowing: The New York Times headline was: “At Trump’s Summit, No Deal on Ukraine, and No Consequence for Putin.” A Fox News reporter said, “It did not seem like things went well. And it seemed like Putin came in and steamrolled, got right into what he wanted to say and got his photo next to the president and then left.”

There’s no one better to break things down than Tim, a journalist and Army medic who’s been in Kiev since Russia invaded Ukraine over three years ago. Now he runs The Counteroffensive, which does on-the-ground reporting on the fight for democracy in Ukraine and around the world.

Although Trump failed to secure a ceasefire, he sent a powerful message to Ukraine, and to the world with the Alaskan summit. The president of the United States welcomed Putin, an accused war criminal, on American soil and rode with him in his presidential limo, after he started a war over three years ago that has killed tens of thousands of people and resulted in the kidnapping of 20,000 children.

"What happened here is that the president of the United States, as you point out, rolled out a little red carpet for a dictator and war criminal and said, 'Hi, welcome to Alaska. Let's treat you as anyone else,’" notes Tim. "… I didn't see Prime Minister Carney of Canada getting a ride in the presidential limo with Donald Trump. I saw Putin. And that's really what's absurd about the whole thing."

After the meeting Trump called Putin a “strong guy” and “tough as hell” and said they “got along great.” Trump’s advice to Zelensky was: “Gotta make a deal.”

"What Trump seems to think is that shared sacrifice and friendships, historical bonds of affection is not an obligation we have to one another. It is the leverage to be used in negotiations,” says Tim.

And the impacts of Trump’s embrace of dictators and transactional approach to foreign policy will reverberate far beyond Ukraine.

"The amount of generational betrayal over the way the United States has treated its friends,” Tim notes. “… It's going to be, I think, a decade or more before we get back to where we were pre-Trump 2.0."

You really have to watch the whole conversation. Tim’s insights are so important. That’s why we’re a paid subscriber to The Counteroffensive and proud to have him regularly on lives on Lincoln Square.

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