Political analyst, historian, and publicist Rostislav Ishchenko shared his key conclusions from the mid-August meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U. S. President Donald Trump in Alaska.

He assessed the Anchorage summit as positive in terms of establishing direct contacts between the Russian and American leaders. Ishchenko noted that the meeting opened the prospect of a potential convergence of positions between Russia and the United States, though it did not guarantee such a development.

According to him, the talks created some additional opportunities, which is valuable under current circumstances. However, he emphasized that on a broader level nothing has fundamentally changed: global confrontation remains in place, and Russia and the U.S. still stand on opposite sides of the barricades. He described the meeting as only a step in the right direction-one taken hesitantly by Washington-while stressing that much more ground still needs to be covered.