U.S. President Trump and Russian President Putin sat down with senior advisers from each country at a highly anticipated summit in Alaska, August 15, 2025. For now, it may make more sense to analyze its underlying logic. After meeting with Trump, Putin openly endorsed Trump’s habitual claim that the war would not have taken place had he been the U.S. president at the time. The three logical chains have made normalization of U.S.-Russia relations the keystone of the Trump-Putin meeting, and Trump’s role switch has been the foremost achievement. At the news conference following the meeting, Putin underscored the need to reverse the situation under which Russia-U.S. ties have reached their lowest point since the Cold War.