"Putin went through a hell of a lot with me." In late February, Donald Trump made remarks to the press that conveyed a sense of compassion, shared adventure, and acknowledgment of wrongs suffered. His words echoed the persistent allegations of collusion between the billionaire and the Kremlin that have intensified since Trump entered politics a decade ago, reinforcing the presumption of a mysterious closeness as the two men prepare to meet in Alaska on Friday, August 15, to negotiate Ukraine's fate behind the back of the victim of Russia's military aggression, as many Europeans fear.

Trump's penchant for strongmen, especially those with authoritarian tendencies, has long been known, as has his rejection of democratic and liberal proselytizing. In the case of Vladimir Putin, their relationship is both longstanding and distant, lacking the personal chemistry that united Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s. It is also opaque: not even the number of phone calls between the two men since the November 2024 US presidential election is known.

In 2013, Trump was a television star and billionaire who cultivated his image as a successful playboy. He traveled to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, for which he and the NBC television network owned the rights. At the time, Trump dreamed of meeting Putin and having him appear on the show. He had long nurtured a major real estate project: constructing a Trump Tower in the Russian capital. The idea for this project first came to him during his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1987.

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