Trump-Putin’s meeting in Alaska makes comparisons from the Reagan-Gorbatchev summit

Speculations on how the next meeting with President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were widespread in last week, with some expressing the Powwow based in Alaska could be more Kremlin games, while others started to make comparisons with the 1985 revolutionary meeting between President Ronald Reagan and the Leader of Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev.

Immediately after Trump’s announcement by Reunion by Reunion last week, the South Carolina Gop Senator Lindsey Graham, who was ardently opposed to the Russian War in Ukraine, went to social networks to argue “, to those who criticize President Trump for having met Putin to end the blood daughter in Ukraine – remember that Reagan Cold war.

“I am convinced that President Trump leaves – like Reagan – if Putin insists on a bad deal,” he added.

During the closing ceremony of the Geneva Summit, the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan faced, on November 21, 1985. (Bettmann via Getty Images)

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Although some comparisons can be established between the next summit and the 1985 historical meeting in Geneva – which then led the couple to sit together twice before the Cold War was ultimately ended – there are “flagrant” differences, experienced experts.

“We could approach a moment of breakthrough if Putin realizes that Trump is the only world leader who will never help Russia get out of the Ukraine war and end his isolation,” said Fred Fleitz, who was deputy assistant to Trump and chief of staff of the National Security Council during the president’s first term, told Fox News Digital.

“Trump offers Putin a narrow window to considerably improve the life of the Russian people and make them prosperous,” he added. “Trump hopes to get a compromise that will give Putin a way to save the face to end the conflict.”

A portrait of President Ronald Reagan is seen in the background while President Donald Trump talks to journalists from the White House Oval Office on April 22, 2025. (Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)

But world leaders and security experts remain suspicious that there is an interest in Putin to end her war ambitions in Ukraine.

“They must meet. We must see the results of the meeting, then we must see if these are acceptable to Ukraine, for Europe and for us,” said Dan Hoffman, former head of the CIA Moscow station, at Fox News Digital.

“I have not seen any indication that Vladimir Putin wants to end the war. So let’s see if there is evidence of this,” he added.

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin serve his hand at the presidential palace in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. (AP photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais, file)

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Hoffman pointed out that the United States has tried to encourage Russia to end its war by various means, including direct military pressure by sending arms packages to Ukraine, and economic sanctions that have not only an impact on the Putin war trunk, but will cause financial tensions across the country.

In the end, Putin does not yet seem to have changed his war calculation, and the experts stressed that there are significant differences between Putin and her Soviet predecessor, Gorbachev, who make this next discourse very different.

Gorbachev came to power after years of Reagan attempts to meet his Soviet counterparts. The new Soviet chief of the time was not only interested in putting an end to the Cold War for decades with the United States, but he also sought to implement major changes at home.

Peter Rough, principal scholarship holder and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia with the Hudson Institute, explained that Gorbachev – which ultimately supervised the dissolution of the Soviet Union – also tried to increase the transparency of the government and open the economy while he was engaged in interviews with Reagan.

“There is no evidence that Putin wants to open Russia,” Rouh told Fox News Digital. “Instead, he wants to defend the course he has followed in the past 25 years, in particular the invasion of Ukraine.

“Putin does not send any of the signals sent by Gorbachev in the 1980s,” he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev talks to each other during a press conference at the Gottorf castle in Germany in December 2004. (Carsten Rehder / Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

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There are clear differences in the way in which Putin – which has openly chastised Gorbachev and described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical disaster of the century” in a 2005 speech – works compared to its Soviet predecessor.

Although some have argued that there are similarities in the way Trump works as a state man compared to Reagan.

The White House and other GOP personalities argued that Trump has used Reagan’s “peace by peace” in his geopolitical maneuvers since he entered in January.

“I believe that there will be convincing comparisons between the approach of Trump’s” peace “as Putin and Reagan to Gorbachev approach,” said Fleitz, who is vice-president of the American Security Center for America First Policy Institute. “The solid Reagan leadership on the world scene favored world stability and contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Putin arrives at the top of Alaska because he sees a strong American president and the one who is ready to impose energy sanctions paralyzing in Russia,” he added.

Rough has echoed this line of reasoning, but warned that many will be determined in the way Trump manages Putin in the next summit.

“Trump has a leverage unlike any other western leader,” said Rough. “I like the formula” Peace by force “but the devil will be in detail.”

President Donald Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16, 2018. (Reuters / Kevin Lamarque)

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“If the president supports his diplomatic efforts in Alaska with a concrete threat of economic pressure on Russia and perhaps even to talk about weapons sales to Ukraine, I think that the chances he pushes Putin in a cease-fire improves,” added Rouh.

Trump has already said that he did not plan to conclude agreements and described talks as a “meeting to feel” or “listening exercise”, as detailed by the white house press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, detailed on Tuesday.

The president said that he would immediately contact Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders following his discussion with Putin.