North to Alaska

An American jet escort for Putin’s plane. The red carpet. A ride in  Trump’s presidential car appropriately called “The Beast” and the red carpet rolled out as the world’s media swooped down on Alaska last week for the Trump-Putin summit that some believed would end the Ukraine war. But it didn’t. And though plenty of progress was clearly made in the talks at the American air-base in Anchorage there was, as Trump put it, “no deal until there's a deal”.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for about three hours in the American Arctic for what Trump described as very "productive" and Putin said were very "constructive" talks.
Putin: the man the imperialist media branded a “war criminal”. The leader of a country subjected to a harsh Western economic blockade was now being greeted like an old friend by the man that the bourgeois media still call the leader of the “free world”. But that world – the world of imperialism and exploitation was never free. And though the current leader of the United States wants to continue exploiting and plundering its resources, he certainly doesn’t wants to rule it.
Overall the atmosphere in Anchorage was one of equality, pragmatism, and friendliness. Despite the arrest warrant against Putin issued by the International Criminal Court, Trump extended a historic welcome to the Russian leader with warm handshakes on American soil. They even travelled together in the same car – gestures that conveyed Trump’s respect for Putin and signalled disapproval of the way previous European and US administrations handled relations with Russia.
"The 'Trump-Putin meeting' was neither a case of each side simply talking past the other, nor did it achieve complete alignment," says Zhao Long, deputy director of the Institute of Global Governance at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies. "It resembled a delicate puzzle, with both sides attempting to fit the core demand for a Ukraine ceasefire into the larger picture of normalising US-Russia relations." Zhao Long added that both leaders sought to avoid a perception of failure, so under the framework of low expectations, even minor consensus points were presented as significant progress to lay the groundwork for further dialogue. 
The Chinese academician argues that Washington and Moscow will continue to use the cease-fire issue to advance normalisation of ties, though a decade of mistrust, entrenched confrontation, and conflicting global interests means the process faces many obstacles.
Nevertheless the Western diplomatic embargo on Russia has been broken and while the summit ended without a deal on the Ukraine crisis it clearly has laid down the groundwork for future dialogue to pave the path toward peace in Ukraine.