All eyes have been on Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as they met for the primary time in additional than six years, the Russian president visiting the US for high-stakes talks that would reshape the struggle in Ukraine.
The 2 leaders greeted one another with a handshake after stepping off their planes on the Elmendorf-Richardson army base in Anchorage, Alaska – and a smiling Trump even applauded Putin as he approached him on a crimson carpet that had been laid out.
It’s precisely the second Putin has craved, writes Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett. The Russian chief has been welcomed on to US soil as an equal for a gathering of nice powers.
Trump-Putin summit – newest updates
The crimson carpet, the handshake, the flypast – solely North Korea would give an indicted struggle prison a greeting like this.
It marks the tip of his isolation from the West in probably the most spectacular vogue.
Picture:
Pic: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
As an alternative of sanctions, Trump has rewarded the Russian president with the equal of a state go to.
The pariah seems extra like a associate.
Please use Chrome browser for a extra accessible video participant
1:30
‘Will you decide to not killing civilians?’
US correspondent James Matthews, reporting from the bottom in Alaska, describes the assembly on the tarmac as “extraordinary”.
There was the crimson carpet and extra for a person with blood on his arms, he writes. Putin – aggressor, pariah and needed for struggle crimes.
Fairly the CV for a person who was applauded on to the airbase by his host, the US president.
It could not have regarded extra cordial – a superpower second with a smile and a shake between the boys who maintain peace of their arms.
If that wasn’t sufficient, there adopted a army flypast to decorate the spectacle.
A smiling Putin appeared duly impressed, however what it says concerning the energy dynamic within the relationship will bother onlookers in Ukraine – and one second they could have discovered notably galling.
Posing for images with Trump earlier than ready media, Putin was requested: “Will you stop killing civilians?”
To which he smiled, and gave it a deaf ear
