How the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska spawned the Kremlin’s myth of the ‘spirit of Anchorage’ — and why it collapsed

Putin’s meeting with Trump in August 2025 gave rise to a new term in the arsenal of Russian diplomacy and propaganda: the “spirit of Anchorage.” The claim was that during the Russian president’s visit to Alaska, Russia and the United States had reached certain agreements on peace in Ukraine — agreements that were directly shaping events on the front and in diplomacy. For a full year, Russian politicians and pro-Kremlin journalists insisted that following the “spirit of Anchorage” was the key ...