Vladimir Putin prepares meticulously for his meetings. So when he shakes hands with Donald Trump in Anchorage on Friday, he will have thought carefully about the course of the conversation.
He will have reasonable sounding answers prepared to every possible objection Donald Trump might raise. He has memorised facts, figures and historic precedents to support his case.
And he has also pushed dozens of infantrymen through a narrow gap in the Ukrainian lines in Donbas, creating a sense that a Russian breakthrough could be imminent. Their real mission: to help Putin recruit the American president to push a Russian vision of peace on Ukraine.
“He hopes to make Trump a cudgel with which to beat the Ukrainians and the Europeans into submission,” as Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London, puts it.
Andrei Fedorov, a former Russian deputy foreign minister, says Putin would be seeking not Trump’s endorsement to impose a specific plan, but a vague “oral blessing” from Trump to pursue peace on Russian terms.